Ghost's Guardian
by Icura
Summary: Sarah Kerrigan was left for dead in New Gettysburg until Alaya intervened. Now, she's bonded to a smart-mouthed, white haired mysterious man. And what the hell is this about her being a magus?
1. Chapter 1

Ghost's Guardian

By Icura

~o~

Chapter 1

~o~

Was this her punishment?

The rifle fell from her limp fingers. It clattered against the broken asphalt of the ruined road, but the noise was drowned out by the ravenous growling. From all around her, dog-like creatures were rushing over the rubble on their clawed feet, their jaws filled with viciously sharp teeth. A pair of arms hung from their shoulders, armed with three blades along their lengths and held at ready to slash apart their prey.

Zerglings. They were the grunts of the Zerg ground forces, produced and sent in great numbers to overwhelm the defenses of even the most hardened Terran lines. For a ghost of her stature, she had put an end to more of their kind than she could ever care to count.

She just never thought that the mooks of the alien bio-army would be the end of her. Yet, here she was, standing in the center of a dead city on a ravaged world. It was ironic; her actions had condemned the entire populace of Tarsonis to death. Was this her just punishment, even though she had done it all for a good cause? Under the dead skies of New Gettysburg, Sarah Kerrigan closed her eyes.

~o~

The moment that he opened his eyes, Shirou Emiya knew his purpose. It was the same one that he had followed countless times before. All around him, the devastation of the world loomed like a dark painting, unwanted but familiar beyond all reason. At times, the canvas would hold a different color or even a different picture, but they all conveyed the same meaning.

The threat was different, but the purpose was the same: kill everything in sight.

~o~

Blood splashed onto her cheek, but it wasn't her own. Pain and agony had not yet visited her. Sarah didn't feel the clawed tendrils or the bladed teeth rip into her flesh, a cause that had spelled death for many of her compatriots. Confused, she opened her eyes and beheld a world of madness.

A red cloak tipped with a crop of white hair stuck out in contrast to the sea of bodies. Black and white blades whirled through the hardened carapaces of the surrounding zerglings, ripping them asunder in a sea of red. A blur, a dance, a symphony. Like music, the death throes resounded like the cry of a violin. Sweet, tender, and violently chaotic.

The zerglings behind her rushed past her, completely ignoring her in favor of the greater threat. It was behavior unlike the Zerg, but she was in no mind to notice. Two arcing crescents, black and white, flowed through the air with a smoothness that beguiled the effort required. The man's feet found purchase on the uneven and rigid bodies, moving lithely even though the flow of attackers never slowed down in the slightest.

He threw his swords, the spinning blades arcing through several bodies, but even injured, these creatures never stopped. Like crazed dogs, they rushed in relentlessly. It didn't matter if they lost a limb or half their bodies; a singular purpose propelled them forth, over the corpses of their fellow monsters and into the jaws of death. One was pierced and pinned by a spear. Another was slashed into two by a greatsword. A hammer smashed one of the beasts from the spire.

The man leaped high into the air, his blood-stained coat fluttering around him. A large black bow appeared in his hand, and from there, it could only be called a rain of death. Fired off like buckshot from a shotgun, numerous arrows pierced through hide and flesh when it shouldn't be possible, not for such primitive weapons. Yet, by the time he landed without a sound, there were only a few stragglers left.

And he killed them. Without mercy, without hesitation, with the black and white swords stained red, he slaughtered them with an inhuman efficiency that felt…_dead_. It was like a lifeless and soulless puppet was wielding those weapons with machine-like precision, devoid of pride and humanity.

Fear gripped her. It was unreasonable, and she didn't even know how she knew it, but that contradiction could not be ignored; it was like looking at something that didn't belong in a painting, an artifact that stuck out in stark contrast with the rest of the image. Her instincts told her one thing: he was beyond the logic of the universe.

Sarah reached for her discarded, empty rifle. Why? She didn't know. To club him over the head, maybe? However, before she could lay a finger on it, she found that she couldn't move. Two blades were hovering over her shoulders, just bare inches from her neck. Still dripping with the blood of zerglings, it would only take a single motion to scissor her head off her body.

Worse of all, she knew he was going to. She felt it deep inside her. So why did he stop?

~o~

Why did he stop? No, that wasn't the right question. How was he able to stop? For Shirou Emiya, the fact that he could bewildered him. He had only realized it, just a moment before he would have made a terrible and disastrous mistake. In all the times that he had been a prisoner in his own body, a puppet for the role of Counter Guardian, this was the first time that his frantic pleas had shut down his forced actions.

Even with the hopelessness he had felt from being forced to kill against his will, he still tried again and again to stop himself. It was a fact that made him who he was; a fact that he had come to utterly regret.

"This is different…" Giving voice to the confusion he felt, Shirou slowly lowered his blades, keeping a tight grip on their hilts. It was far tighter than usual, for he felt that if he didn't, he would lose control over himself and become the murderous machine that he was forced to be.

"Who are you?"

Wonderment. Strangeness. Like something that didn't belong. In the face of her bewilderment, the man in the red coat simply stared at her with a calm expression, as if this was nothing more than a calm walk in a meadow.

"No one of consequence."

"That sure as hell wasn't nothing." Sarah watched him cautiously. She didn't know what had come over her earlier, but now that he was actually talking, she felt that strange pressure lessening. "What you just did was impossible!"

Shirou allowed his weapons to disperse, ignoring Sarah's widening eyes. It was only now that he noticed it. He was connected to this woman.

"What were those? Psionic blades?" She had seen the psi blades formed by the Protoss and had even formed a more basic form herself, but to see something corporeal like this was impossible.

"…just what kind of master are you?"

"What?"

Shirou didn't reply as he looked upward. Reinforcing his eyes with prana, he could see far into the distance. A swarm of flying bat-like creatures was massing towards his location. Individually, their size eclipsed that of even fighter planes, and their speed was nothing to laugh about. At the end of their worm-like bodies, the spot where their tail would be had been switched out in favor of a gaping and toothed hole, like a second mouth on their bodies. A few of the creatures were ahead of the pack, ushering in their entrance with a green glow emitting from their bottom mouth. There was nothing good that could come from that.

"We need to leave." Without waiting for a response, Shirou scooped her off her feet to carry her bridal style.

"What are you—!" Her eyes widened when she spotted the dark figures in the skies.

"Keep your mouth shut or you'll bite your tongue." With a burst of speed, Shirou ran to and jumped up onto the side of a nearby skyscraper and sprinted up its length, ignoring Sarah's surprised cry. Reaching an adequate height, he leaped off of the glass just as a flying worm with leathery wings crashed into the building, sending shards of concrete and glass flying outward. Landing lightly on the top of a nearby apartment complex, he ran across the rooftop as two more of the winged beasts homed in on them.

The bat creatures swung their tails forward as clumps of green sludge were spat out of their lower mouths. Shirou weaved left and right, evading the projectiles as they hit the rooftop and bounced like ping pong balls. He ducked his head as one of the masses of green sludge sped past him, smashing into and breaking through the window of an apartment. The remaining sludge on the new entryway continued to eat at the walls with smoke rising from the melting edges. His eyes widened. Acid.

"Grab onto my neck!" Sarah heeded the command and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He released her and spun around, spinning her onto his back as a large black bow formed in his arms. With a speed that could only be gained through countless years of effort, he formed and shot several arrows within the span of moments. Even as he turned and continued his run without breaking a stride, he could hear the creatures' screeching as they fell from the skies, their wings pierced by his arrows. Their accuracy was assured even before the arrows left his hand.

The cries of the fallen bat creatures attracted more of them from all directions, but he could not afford to stop for even a moment to end them. He jumped onto the next rooftop as a cacophony of alien screeches echoed from the lower levels. Up ahead, a spiny slug-like creature with a large shell behind its head stabbed its bladed scythe-like forearms into the roof, pulling itself up as it let out a horrible shriek.

Shirou formed his two trusted blades, Kanshou and Bakuya, into his hands and flung them even while dodging a volley of foot-long spines shot out from under the creature's shoulder carapace. The two swords, attracted to each other by a curse, met under the slug creature's head, severing the vulnerable flesh above its upper carapace. Blood flooded out as it wiggled madly in pain, sheering the ears of all those present with its dying cry. The bladed forearms ripped right through the roofing, causing the creature to fall back down to the street level. Paying no attention to his kill, Shirou ran to the edge and leaped towards the next building, even as the creatures below spat out armor-piercing spines that trailed just moments behind him. He landed roughly on the rooftop with a grunt, but he didn't pause for even a second before continuing his run.

Sarah hung on for her dear life, barely aware if she was even breathing. The mad rush, the mad chase. It was like she was in a whole different world. Was she dreaming? If she let go, would she wake up? Those thoughts entered her mind, but she was too afraid to even try them. Her hands were holding onto him with almost a death grip, but he seemed to hardly notice it at all.

Instead, a completely different thought occupied his mind.

"Is this really Earth?" Creatures that were even alien to legend and myth were crawling out of the woodworks, seeming like products straight out of humanity's worst nightmares. No, was it even possible to imagine something as disturbing as this? Even Merem Solomon wouldn't be able to produce madness such as this. Shirou had seen first-hand what that Dead Apostle could do, and it was nowhere near this bad.

The only comparison he could think of that would equal the lethality of what he was seeing would only be Primate Murder, a creature solely designed in its entirety to kill humans with its every waking breath. It was said that to touch Primate Murder with a single finger was to risk complete and absolute death. These creatures weren't up to that level, but they were certainly reaching for it. However, he could not imagine that Gaia would create something like this. The destruction, not to mention the acid, wasn't the style of Gaia as these factors actually harmed the environment. A town emptied of all humans could be attributed to Gaia's Counter Force, but not the destruction of its land.

This was something altogether different.

"Earth? What in the world are you talking about?" Sarah had to practically yell to make herself heard over the chasing animalistic screeches and growls. "You inhale too many spores or something? This is Tarsonis!"

"Is that a country? What continent is that on?" Shirou spiraled to the side, barely avoid the acid sludge. He retaliated with his bow, sending several flyers crashing into the buildings and creatures below.

"Continent? What...? Tarsonis is a planet!"

Shirou blinked in surprise, but only for a moment.

"…then Alaya's grasp has certainly expanded. Or this could be just a parallel world? Zelretch would certainly be interested in an Earth that has a different history," Shirou mused as he landed on the side of a skyscraper and ran straight up the glass that covered the entirety of its side. If he couldn't outrun the swarm on the horizontal plane, he would have to make do with the vertical way. The flyers moved to intercept him, but he had already anticipated their action. He released several pairs of black and white blades, letting the whirling blades swing into the flight paths of the bat-like creatures.

The flying acid spitters pulled back with incredible agility, though some still fell victim to the confusing paths of the blades, their bodies shredded apart while their acid blood fell freely from their broken skin. Of the wounded, a rare few remained in the air while the rest dropped like flies, their fragile bodies unable to hold them afloat. The remaining flyers hung back and let loose green acid from their tails. The sludge easily broke through the glass of the building, bouncing and melting its way through the interior.

Shirou dodged the first few without breaking stride, but the endless barrage was getting closer and closer. Entering through the shattered glass, he ran across one of the top floors of the skyscraper, weaving through the abandoned cubicles that had once been manned by corporate workers. Half a dozen acid sprays trailed after him. The bouncing sludge ricocheted off of the floor, walls, ceiling, and cubicles, coming dangerously close in their random trajectories as he ducked and weaved through the office floor.

Reaching the other side, he broke through the glass window with his shoulder, uncaring of the numerous shards that dug and tore into his skin and clothes. He used his body to shield his passenger from the majority of it, but some still got through. One in particular sliced a cut into Sarah's cheek. As they fell out of the skyscraper, he spun around and formed his bow once again. Instead of a regular arrow, a drill-like sword, Caladbolg II, appeared in his other hand. He pulled the bow string back on the fake spiral sword as the bat creatures flew over the skyscraper, amassing together. The flyers dived as one, attacking in a swarm with mindless fervor. He broke the Noble Phantasm and released the string.

"Close your eyes!" Even as Shirou spun around to face forward, his feet pushing off the side of the building to propel him forward and away, Sarah kept her head turned, her eyes glued on the speeding sword. The moment it stabbed into the worm-like body of the bat creature in the center of the swarm, it cracked open and exploded, engulfing the entire group in a massive ball of ravaging fire.

The mutalisks screeched and flapped around in desperation, even as their bodies burned to cinders. It was reminiscent of a sun, burning and melting away at the edges of the skyscraper.

"What the hell was that!?" It was a question that floated from her lips even before she realized it. It contained the awe, the wonderment, and the fear that she felt inside of herself at the sight.

Shirou didn't bother to answer as he dropped down. It wasn't long before he landed on a building a fair distance from the skyscraper, cushioning his landing with Reinforcement, but even without any enemies in sight—most of them having been attracted to the fire in the sky—he resumed his running. This area bore signs of having been previously ravaged by the beasts, but they had left this area behind after cleansing it as there were none of those monsters in the streets below. Still, he sprinted across the rooftops to gain as much distance as he could. He hadn't survived as long as he did in his previous life by being careless.

~o~

"Commander, come in. This is Kerrigan. Do you read me?" Sarah paced around the floor of the abandoned factory, impatiently tapping her finger against the earbud of her headset. Same as the last half an hour that she had been trying, there was no response. After the twentieth tap, she repeated her message. "Commander, this is Kerrigan. Do you read—"

"We need to leave soon." Sarah swung her elbow behind her, but Shirou easily caught her arm. He had an amused expression on his face. "Did I scare you?"

"Don't do that." Sarah pulled her arm out of his grip with a glare. The man unnerved her. Even though she was considered a veteran and even an elite at her job, this red-coated man felt more like a ghost than anyone that she had ever seen. It was like he could fade away the moment she took her eyes off of him. That notion—real or not—was more than enough to set her on edge.

He chuckled mirthlessly at her reaction.

"What do you mean we have to leave soon?"

"Their territory is increasing. It won't be long before this location is covered in ooze as well." The sight that he saw from the rooftops with his reinforced eyes was disturbing at best. A growing purple layer of mold was slowly stretching outward from the center of the city, overlaying the ground with its strange, alien texture. Organic structures were being grown on top of the mold. Their purpose was unknown, but he couldn't fathom that it would be anything positive. The only thing he had ever seen that came close to this—short of a reality marble—was from a Type, the ultimate being of each planet. What he had seen of Type-Mercury in that South American village was better left unsaid.

"That doesn't give me much…" A faint buzzing emerged from her headset. Sarah turned away from him as she moved to try to get a better signal. It slowly became clearer, and she could just barely make out the words…

"Ke…gan, th…is Jim. Do you…ad me?"

"Jim. Jim! Can you hear me?" Sarah climbed up the stairs to see if it would help the reception. Fortunately, it did.

"I hear ya loud and clear, darlin'. Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, but what happened to my evac, Jim? Everyone is dead, and I barely made it out. What happened up there!?"

"_Mengsk_," Jim spat out the name distastefully, "pulled the fleet out of orbit."

"What?! Was there an attack?"

"Sorry, darlin', but he had planned on abandoning you here from the start."

"He's the one that saved me! Why would he throw me away to the zerg? He wouldn't. Not after everything I did for him."

"I don't know, darlin', but I'm coming to get you. What's your coordinates?"

"No, I'm too close to the primary hive in New Gettysburg. There are too many mutalisks in the air."

"I'm not leaving you there, Sarah."

"And I'm not telling you to. I want to get out of this alive too, Jim." Sarah ran a gauntlet through her mind in search of a solution. She had memorized the map of New Gettysburg as well as the surrounding areas before the start of the mission. "What about emergency evacuation site B?"

"No can do. The Protoss are throwing down with the zerg something fierce over there."

"The Protoss are still here? Not saying I'm not glad they aren't, but why haven't they glassed the planet yet? It's practically overrun with Zerg."

"Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine."

"What about Site D?"

"Doable, but that's pretty far out. You'd have to trek through an open desert. You'd be lucky if you aren't spotted within the first five ticks."

"What do you suggest then, Jim?"

"Site G should be clear."

"That's on the other side of the city!"

"Where are you at, Sarah?"

"Delta 10, Zeta 4."

"The north side of New Gettysburg? You need to get out of there now! The place is gonna be a hot zone within the hour. Protoss forces are heading towards the city from the north, and I don't think they'll be happy to see you. Not after what you did."

"Jim, I don't need commentary. I need a route."

"On it, darlin'." There was a pause on the line that lasted for a minute before James Raynor returned. "Okay, here's the plan. Head to the west until you hit exactly Delta 7, then head south. Chances are slim, but you can slip right by the hive. It's gonna be dangerous, but it's the best chance ya got."

"Is this really the best you can come up with?"

"Unless you want to try your hand at the open desert, this is all we got."

"Don't tempt me."

"Never crossed my mind, darlin'."

"We're more than likely going to be coming in hot. Prepare a welcome party."

"I'll even cook your favorite dish." Raynor chuckled before his mind caught something. "We?"

"A survivor from New Gettysburg. He saved my life."

"Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I'll leave a seat free at the table."

"I'm counting on you, Jim. Kerrigan out."

"See you on the flip side. Raynor out."

Sarah breathed out a sigh of relief. That was one burden off her shoulders. Now that she actually had a plan to get out of this place, it seemed like things were finally starting to look up, even if the plan was extremely risky. It was better than staying out here and waiting for death. She walked over to the wall and picked up an assault rifle she had found. It wasn't anything as potent as a marine's rifle, but any normal person would break their arms trying to fire those without an exoskeleton suit.

This assault rifle was mostly made for bodyguards to deal with humans, so it wasn't going to have much effect on the Zerg unless her bullets hit the right spot. She always prided herself on her accuracy but not when she couldn't properly calibrate her weapons. The scope was pretty banged up in the first place, so she had to make do with just eyeing it. If she could just shoot off a couple of rounds, then she would have a much better idea, but it could attract the Zerg so that was out.

"It seems you found a way to safety," Shirou said.

"'We'. The word you're looking for is 'we'," Sarah said. "Unless you want to be stuck here, we should stick together. This world is dead. The only way we can survive is by heading to the evac site. With the infestation in the atmosphere, it's a slim hope, but it's all we have."

A distant rumble brought their eyes to the shattered windows. In the far off distance, a mushroom cloud of fire and smoke could be seen rising from the ground. It was a ghastly sight, but one that was becoming all too common. They were silent as they stared at it, as if they were watching the eruption of a volcano. It took a full minute before the shockwave finally arrived and ran through the factory, shattering what little glass remained on the window panels and shaking the structurally unsound building violently.

"Tactical nukes," Kerrigan said. "A last ditch effort to stop the Zerg, but it won't do much more than slow them down."

Shirou narrowed his eyes. He had seen nuclear weapons used before, especially in the world war, but it was not a sight he could ever get used to. The only blessing was that the weapon used here wasn't on the same scale to the devastation wrought by the nuclear weapons that he had seen in his previous life.

"Were there people in the blast radius?"

"They were probably the ones who hit the switch." Kerrigan walked over to the window as the shaking settled down. "Better to die like that than to be ripped apart and eaten by the Zerg."

"There must be some way to save them." Shirou's lips were grimly set in a frown.

"You're talking as if you don't know about the Zerg." Seeing his blank expression, Sarah asked, "Wait, you really don't know?"

"I've never heard of them before today."

"I know the Confederates had a tight leash on the media, but it couldn't have been that bad. Not for someone like you."

"Then that makes me an exception."

"You're pretty sheltered, aren't you? Well, for a trained killer." Kerrigan turned to look at him. "We better get going before—"

"You will not be going anywhere, Terrans." Was it a voice? It was more like a psychic echo that reverberated across the warehouse. To call it a sound was to label it with a meaningless word. It was more similar to a connection or a bubble in which a sound was imitated but not truly reproduced.

Kerrigan swung her rifle to aim at where it originated from while Shirou waited with folded arms.

Through the open gap that was once the spot where a freight door had been, three tall warriors stepped into the warehouse. Their long, alien faces—lacking mouths and sporting two luminescent eyes—were distinct and strangely textured. Smooth, ritualistic heavy armor adorned their bodies, but it did not impede their harsh yet elegant movements. Sprouting from their bracers were blades of ethereal light, their form complete yet unrefined enough that psionic energy could be seen leaking off the edges.

For however much that he looked at them, Shirou could not grasp their design. They could not be analyzed nor could they be reproduced within himself, because they weren't real weapons in the material sense. They were more like unstable energy condensed into that shape, constantly changing at a moment's notice like water in a crystal container.

"Is she the one?" That echo resonated from one of the alien warriors.

"Yes." The other answered in a similar echo, but it had a distinct flavor to it that set it apart from the previous Protoss.

"Are you sure?"

"There can be no other."

Just as both zealots were about to attack, the one in the lead held up his hand. The other two stopped, but they still held their psi blades at the ready. The zealot in the lead chose this moment to speak.

"En Taro Adun, Spirit. We have no quarrel with a Spirit of Heroism." The leader pointed his four fingered hand at Shirou. "You may leave to attend to your purpose, but your companion must answer for her crimes."

"And if my business involves her?" Shirou casually asked, unfolding his arms. Despite his tone, there was a slight edge to his voice.

"If your words are not false, then she may leave as well. Reluctant we may be, but we have no business hindering a being such as you."

"You are letting her go? This human protected the primary hive! The sacrifices of our brethren were because of her," one of the zealots said.

"And many more will be sacrificed if we do not heed the spirit," the lead zealot said. "Only in times of great peril do they come to prevent a future evil. It is not our place to interfere."

"I agree," the other zealot said. "But only if those words ring with truth. Is your purpose truly with her, Spirit?"

"It is," Shirou solemnly said.

"Then let us depart. Our duties are to the south."

"The Executor will not accept this."

"Executor Tassadar believes in the Terrans. The involvement of the Spirit is more than enough for the High Templar to relent on his order."

Overwhelmed by the words of the other two, the disgruntled zealot could only nod his head in assent, even while dissatisfaction plagued him. The lead zealot pointed his psi blade at Sarah.

"I am allowing you to live for the greater good, but do not think presume that my brethren will be as lenient. Leave this world while you still can."

Moving as one, the team of zealots turned around and swiftly left the warehouse through the gaping hole, their exit as silent as their entrance.

Sarah breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn't every day that your life flashes before your eyes, but it was becoming a little too commonplace for her. The sooner she got off this rock, the better. However, what had driven them off? She stared at Shirou with wariness and cautiousness.

"What are you?"

"To be asked that kind of question in the first place…" Shirou chuckled without a hint of joy. "What an unfortunate lot I have."

"I'm asking you a question." Sarah couldn't let this go. If she was going to die on this godforsaken planet, then she wanted this curiosity satisfied.

"That," Shirou said, "is something best left for a better time."

"No. I want to know, right now."

"Truly an unfortunate lot," Shirou said ruefully, though he was as calm as ever.

"I'm not leaving until I get answers."

"And I will give them once we're safe," Shirou said condescendingly. "They'll be here soon. The longer we stay here, the harder it'll be to escape."

"Then talk while we move." Sarah motioned for him to go first. "I'm the only one with the evac here, and if you don't start giving me answers, I'll leave your sorry ass behind."

"You need me as much as I need you." Shirou obliged, beginning to move to the exit.

"Maybe, but I'm not going to trust my back to some lying piece of shit," Sarah said as she followed him. "You want me to trust you? Level with me. Why did you save me?"

"Because you summoned me."

"Just because I somehow can't read your mind doesn't mean you can—"

"Shut up and listen. You summoned me. I don't know how you did it, but you brought me to this reality, and you're the only thing keeping me here," Shirou said, stopping by the gaping hole of the warehouse. "We're bonded by a link. Close your eyes and dig deep. You'll feel it."

Sarah gave him a skeptical look, but something in his voice caused her to close her eyes despite how much her rationality rallied against the action. She felt her psionic powers, amplified by her concentration, and continued to search through herself. That was when she found it. The link, the bond, the one-way hose of psionic energy that she was continuously feeding into him. She opened her eyes, bewildered and confused.

"How…?"

"We don't have time for this." Shirou looked outside at the position of the sun before moving through the hole. "The hour draws near. We'll talk about this later."

"How do I know you're not lying?" Sarah followed him outside. The desolate city stretched out before them, but for now, there was—thankfully—no sign of the Zerg here.

"You don't."

"If I find out you're lying…"

"Feel free to shoot me then."

"Don't think I won't."

"Of course."

~o~

In the empty, ruined street, the sound of light footsteps—barely audible above the distant noises of fighting—was the only thing that could be heard. A distortion of air sped past the broken walls and broken rubble. The barely visible blur moved into a dark alley as a wave of psionic energy flushed over its form, revealing a redheaded ponytailed woman in a lightly armored body suit.

Sarah Kerrigan frowned as she checked the meter on her left forearm. Her psionic energy was constantly running through the psi-sensitive suit, such that it was able to give a mostly accurate indication of her current level of energy. Watching the number slowly blink up as her energy regenerated, she knew that it was going slower than usual. That weird link that she had with that unknown man was putting a strain on her body, making her much less efficient.

"It's clear."

From the rooftop, a white-haired man dropped down into the alley, the edges of his red coat fluttering behind him. Landing without a sound in a crouch, he rose up to his full height and took a look around him. It was dank and smelled horrendously of blood and gunpowder.

"You chose a strange place to rest," Shirou said.

"I'm not working my best because of someone _here_ leeching psi energy off me."

Empty suits of bloodstained marine armor sat abandoned against the walls, the glass of their helmets broken into and their grip still on their C-14 rifles. For a moment, Sarah considered taking one of those assault rifles, but that thought was quickly put down; the recoil alone would be enough to break both of her arms.

"Why not take refuge inside the building?"

"Did you forget what I explained to you about them earlier? The Zerg works by entrapment. In an enclosed space, it'd be easy for zerglings to swarm the place," Sarah said. "At least out here, we've a chance to escape."

"It wouldn't impede the hydralisks or mutalisks."

"They won't shoot if there's a chance of friendly fire. It's instinctively built into them. As long as they can't get into a firing line, they won't be a problem." Sarah had found that out from the psionic experiments with the Zerg that she was forced to partake in. Not that she was ever going to tell him about that.

"How much longer?"

"A few more ticks." Sarah checked her psi meter again. It was slow going, making her way across the ruined city in bursts while using her cloak, but it was safer than running out in the open. If they were spotted by one of the Zerg, it wouldn't be long before the entirety of the swarm would descend upon them. That was why they had to make their move carefully.

"We might not have that long." At Sarah's questioning look, Shirou pointed out of the alley and toward the sky.

There was a group of giant floating creatures, slowly drifting by a fair distance above the ruined buildings. Each one had a beetle-like head and bulbous balloon body with two crab-like arms hanging down from it and many drifting tendrils. It was massive, easily eclipsing the other Zerg in all dimensions.

"Overlords." Sarah frowned. This was going to make things more difficult. "There's no use hiding from it with cloak. It can detect through that."

"What about taking it down?"

"And alert the swarm? You may have a death wish, but I don't."

"I can take it out in one shot."

"Doesn't matter. Kill any of the Zerg, and you alert the whole brood." Sarah ran her fingers through her hair. "The problem is those movements…it's like they're searching for something."

"Survivors like us?"

"No offense, but we're about as important to them as a sticker on the wall. It's a waste to search around for stragglers while there's a battle going on. Sooner or later, they'll overrun this planet, and when they do, nothing's going to get out alive. No, they're after something else. We just got to keep out of sight until then, but we can't take too long. The Protoss aren't going to be battling them forever, and Jim's in a bad position."

"What do you suggest?"

"There are sewer tunnels under the city that we can use. Normally, they'd be guarded by sentry turrets, but with the power plants down, those are likely to be offline."

"If we're found, it'll be a death trap," Shirou said.

"It's only a matter of time if we stay up here," Sarah said. "I rather bet on that than take my chances going head to head against the Zerg. Who knows? We might even make it out alive."

~o~

Shirou dropped into the sewer, bypassing the ladder entirely. It was dark with the only light coming from the open manhole, but there were no Zerg in sight. He closed his eyes and strengthened his ears with prana. There was no sound besides the distant ambience of violence.

"It's safe."

Sarah descended the ladder, stepping down rung by rung. After reaching the last one, she hopped off and wrinkled her nose at the smell. She knew it was going to smell bad, but imagining it and experiencing it were two completely different things. She almost wished that she had kept her old helmet, if only to block out the horrendous scent. Taking a look at her companion, she saw that he wasn't affected by it at all, or at least he was hiding his distaste well.

The tunnels were dark, but there were holes in the ceiling—ripped open by the battles that had taken place on the streets above—at various intervals that allowed some light to come through. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. In the middle of the tunnel was a stream of putrid water, tainted with lines of blood. On both sides along the walls, there was a pathway for people to walk on.

"Let's get going. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get the hell out of here," Sarah said, forging on ahead. Shirou followed behind her at a more sedated pace.

As they walked through the tunnels, Sarah sporadically tapped the wall. What came back was a metallic echo that sounded a bit hallow. Seeing his questioning look, she began to explain.

"Hidden turrets. You can find them by their discolored panel on the wall. If they were on, they would flip out of the wall and open fire," Sarah said. "It was the death of many rats and more than a few of the shadier civilians. But if you knew the right people, you could get a guide through these tunnels, which would be pretty good if you wanted to get rid of pursuers. Only if they weren't Confederates, though. They have identifiers on them so the turrets wouldn't open fire on them."

"You sound knowledgeable about that."

"I had to stay in the city for a while in the past."

"You're telling quite a bit to someone you don't trust."

"You _did_ save my life," Sarah said. "There was no way I could've survived without you, so I figured I should cut you some slack by giving you a bit of rope. Just don't hang yourself with it."

"How generous." Shirou smirked. "Is there a way to reactivate the turrets? It could help distract the Zerg."

"Short answer: no. Long answer: we'd have to bust into the waste disposal plant and get the back-up generator up and running, but the plant is _that way_ outside the city." Sarah pointed in the direction they had come from.

"So the only choice is to move forward."

"If you want to backtrack past those Protoss, then be my guest."

"Oh? You think you can survive without me?"

"Well, I rather not try my chances," Kerrigan reluctantly admitted. "At least, not with this rifle. It's not going to hold up well against anything bigger than a—"

Shirou clasped a hand over her mouth. He caught her wrist and stepped on her foot, stopping her from kicking him.

"Be silent," he whispered harshly to her. The Counter Guardian looked up at the holes and cracks in the ceiling of the tunnel. Shadows momentarily covered the light from the holes, making it flicker as the sounds of rapid footsteps could be heard. However, one lingered over a crack, letting no sunlight shine in through that fissure. The sound of scraping could be heard for a moment, before it moved on with the rest of its pack.

When the sounds finally became more distant, Sarah pushed him away from her with her free hand. She glared at him.

"You could've just warned me."

"Wait." A cold chill ran down his spine as Shirou summoned his black and white curved swords into his hands. "That wasn't enough footsteps."

The ceiling behind and in front of them broke apart as zerglings fell into the sewer tunnel, having burrowed through both dirt and metal to reach the two. The moment their feet touched the floor, they sprung into action, charging forth like rabid dogs.

"Stay close!" Shirou rushed forward, slashing apart two zerglings by swinging his blades outward. He swung upward, tearing a zergling falling from the ceiling above them in half as Sarah ran past him. Throwing the blades blindly in the direction they had come from, he ran down the sewer tunnel and caught up with her.

Sarah spun around and fired a shot. A loud crack echoed as one of the pursuing zerglings screeched madly just before it crashed to the floor. Dozens of alien cries echoed through the tunnel as its fellow zerglings ran over its corpse, splashing the sewage water as they chased after the fleeing couple with a ravenous hunger.

"We won't be able to outrun them." Sarah fired off another shot, taking another zergling down. "They're too fast."

"Then we'll make our stand here. Trace on." Shirou tossed Kanshou and Bakuya the moment they materialized into his hands. Another pair appeared and he threw them as well. Yet another pair was created. And then, another and another and another and another, until he lost count of how many he had thrown. The spinning swords bouncing off the walls, carving deep grooves in the process. Sparks flew as they ricocheted from wall to wall, their attraction to their opposite blade keeping their momentum up as they sped past each other, creating a corridor of bouncing blades.

There was no room to evade. It was only luck that the randomness—caused by both the ricocheting and its inherent attraction to their paired blade—didn't slay one of the zergling, but for all the rest, they were shredded to pieces. Their body parts were sheared off by the passing swords, eliciting pained cries as they fell into the sewage water, their remaining limbs trying futilely to pull themselves up.

Crack. Sarah lowered her rifle as the last standing zergling toppled over, dead before it hit the ground. She began to run. "Move! They know we're here."

Shirou easily caught up to her and matched her pace.

A slight buzzing in her headset alerted her that a communication was coming in before she even heard the voice.

"Sarah, can you read me?"

Sarah clicked her headset on as she ran. "Little busy here, Jim."

"You're about to get busier," Raynor said. "I'm reading five ultralisks and a sea of zerglings and hydralisks in that region. They even got enough mutalisks and guardians in the air to level an armor column. I don't know whatever the hell you two did, but you gone and pissed 'em right off something fierce."

"Are you serious?" She could feel her heart beating in her ears. "This isn't the time for jokes."

"I wish I was joking, darlin'."

"Delta 7, Zeta 7. We're in the sewer tunnels," Sarah said frantically into her microphone. "Give me a route. Give me something!"

"Calm down, Sarah. I'm gonna get you out. Keep heading south. If you can get to the surface, do so. Alert me when you do. I'll look for ya in the direction the Zerg are heading to," Raynor said. "This is gonna be sticky, but we're going for a hot extraction. I'll drop you a rope on a flyby."

"That's really risky. You might fly me into a building."

"Only chance we got. I'll contact you when I'm en route. Get it the first time, because I don't think we'll get a second chance, darlin'."

"Alright, I'll take your word for it. Make it happen, Jim. Kerrigan out."

"You got it. Stay frosty. Raynor out."

The ceiling broke apart as a zergling dropped down on top of them. Shirou materialized a spear and pinned the creature to an unbroken portion of the ceiling. It screeched in pain and struggled to get free, but it was stuck there.

"We got to get to the surface, my friend can make a flyby pick-up for us," Sarah said. "Problem is that there's an entire brood on the surface above. They even have ultralisks, and they only use those against heavy threats."

"Ultralisks?"

"Giant oversized bugs about the size of a small building with a pair of massive blade arms. They can cleave through tanks just as easily as they can slice through flesh. They're the biggest and strongest that we know of in the Zerg army."

"Wonderful." Shirou let out a sigh. "Keeping you alive is becoming quite the hassle."

"Well, _sorry_ for my life being such a burden to you," Sarah said in a sardonic tone.

"I would save you regardless. Just letting you know how much effort this is going to take," Shirou said. "But I've done stupider things for much less before."

"Can we save this for when we get out of here alive?" Sarah fired off her rifle ahead of her as she ran. The zergling leaped to the side, dodging the shot, but another pull of the trigger ended the creature.

Shirou grabbed her arm and pulled her back as a massive hoof shattered the ceiling, collapsing the tunnel ahead of them. As the enormous leg rose up, he found himself looking at an immense mammoth of a creature staring down at them. This was an ultralisk, he realized with more than a little sense of apprehension. It raised one of its arms, rearing back its incredibly long sickle-like blade with it. He picked up Sarah and leaped back as the tusk-like blade ripped through the walls and tunnel like it was cutting a cucumber. The section collapsed even as it reared back its other blade arm for another strike.

"You've got to be kidding me," Sarah said. "What're we going to do?"

"Stay behind me." Shirou stepped forward, materializing a red spear into his hand. It was designed with vine-like embossing along its shaft, ending in a long, slender spearhead that was as elegant as it was deadly. This was the legendary cursed spear wielded by the Irish hero, Cu Chulainn: Gae Bolg. "How many hearts does it have?"

"You can't possibly be thinking about taking that thing on! We'll find another way."

"There is no other." Behind them, the growls of the distant but approaching Zerg swarm could be heard from down the tunnel. In his other hand, he materialized an enormous bow. The Bow of Hydra, a weapon once used by Heracles. He placed the weapon that had once slain the numerous heads of the hydra onto his back. He would need it for what he was about to do. "How many?"

"Four," Sarah answered. "But you can't…"

Shirou broke into a run, dashing up the rubble of the collapsed tunnel. The ultralisk slashed at him, but he had sped past the impact zone. It swung its other arm to slice him in half, but he leaped high into the air. Prana filled the weapon as he reared back the red spear.

There was only one chance. One moment.

And nine lives.

In that moment, he released the prana contained in the weapon and activated its ability nine times. In that instant, he reversed the law of casualty nine times, straining his own body against the stabilizing reality that objected to his actions. He stabbed his spear forward nine times in the span of a split second. Each heart was pierced twice over, through the tank-like hide and the near-unbreakable ribs. That was because the heart was pierced long before the weapon had even touched the surface of the creature's hide. This was an irrevocable fate, one ordained by the powers of this legendary spear, so the logic of the world reasoned and rationalized. It stated that the weapon must have gone through all obstacles, past each of the impregnable defenses, to achieve that fated end.

Thus, it was made into reality.

The ultralisk roared in defiance and confusion, switching between its destroyed hearts in an effort to keep itself alive from the sudden blood loss. Yet, each time it switched, it only found a mangled organ. With one last wail, it fell heavily down onto the street with a resounding boom, throwing up a cloud of dust.

The rifle fell from her limp fingers as Sarah stared at the sight with disbelief. She didn't even notice that she was picked up and thrown onto his shoulder until they were already flying through the air.

"Stop struggling if you don't want me to drop you." Shirou landed on the corpse of the ultralisk, even as zerglings and hydralisks began climbing the dead mammoth. He leaped off the mammoth's corpse and over the crowd, landing on the side of an apartment building before running up its length. Below him, hydralisks began scaling the building, stabbing their bladed forearms into the wood and pulling themselves up with an agility that would have made rock climbers jealous.

Shirou strafed left and right as he ran, barely evading the pressurized spines shot up after him. He shifted Sarah from his shoulder to his arms, holding her in front of him in a bridal style so that he could shield her from the spines.

Sarah pressed a finger to her headset. "Jim, we need evac now! We're heading to the rooftops."

"Can…re…ETA…ve…icks."

"We're not going to last five minutes, Jim." There was no response. "Jim!"

Sarah felt a jolt on her headset. Pulling it off, she saw that some of the wires had been pierced through, probably from a spine. "Damn it!" She threw it away in frustration.

Shirou flipped over to the top of the rooftop and froze. He had been intending to leap from rooftop to rooftop, but the building ahead of him shuddered violently before it tipped over. The buildings all around them were going following suit. They crashed to the ground floor, crushing numerous Zerg. Looking over the edge, he saw that ultralisks had ripped through the foundations of those surrounding buildings. Guardians, crab-like flyers, in the skies were spewing blobs of acid onto those buildings, weakening them enough for the ultralisks to finish the job. It was already too far to jump to any other structure, but they were continuing their work, breaking down building after building to isolate them.

"It looks like they're trapping us here. They're adapting to my tactics." He set Sarah onto her feet.

"My friend's not going to make it in time."

"I heard you. Five minutes, right?"

"Yeah." Sarah's trigger finger itched for the rifle, but even if she hadn't dropped it, it wouldn't do much. Not against this onslaught.

"Are you tired?"

"Of course I am."

"Sorry," Shirou said, though it was without feeling. "This will make you more exhausted."

"What are you…?" Sarah trailed off as energy began to leak off of the red-coated man.

"I am the bone of my sword." Shirou began his chant as he pulled power from their link. Sarah slipped down to her knees as it somehow became inexplicably harder to breathe. "Steel is my body, and fire is my blood.

"I have created over a thousand blades." Mutalisks and guardians began to amass in the skies above.

"Unknown to Death, nor known to Life." The first of the hydralisks reached the top, pulling itself over with its scythe-like forearms.

"Have withstood pain to create many weapons." The mutalisks began their dive.

"Yet, those hands will never hold anything." The hydralisks surged forward.

"So as I pray," Shirou said calmly, taking one last look at the approaching horde.

"Unlimited Blade Works."

A circle of fire expanded from him, encompassing the entirety of the rooftop in a dome of flames. The hydralisk outside its range climbed up the building and continued to mindlessly dive into the flames as their brethren mutalisks did the same, unheeding of the dangers that it might encounter. All of those who entered the ring of fire were drawn into the reality marble.

In it, Shirou stood on a dusty plain, his long coat billowing in the non-existent wind. There were weapons stabbed into the ground as far as his eyes could see, yet he knew each and every one of them intimately. In the far distance, on the backdrop of the sky, large gears continued to grind like clockwork, echoing the noise through this reality.

This was his reality, the landscape of his mind. Each and every weapon that he had ever seen, he recreated them here. That was the core of his special strength. He could analyze weapons, their structure and their history, from a glance. In here, each and every one of these weapons was perfect, indistinguishable from the original. Some had even been made better. It was when he took them out and brought them into the real world with Projection magecraft that they become less than perfect, a direct downgrade from the original no matter what changes or modifications he had wrought upon the weapon.

This dreary, empty plain was the only place where he could call upon their history and wield them in the style of their greatest user. They were legendary weapons, some whose stories had been lost to the annals of time and the archives of museums, their story never to be remembered and their glories long forgotten, but he remembered them. It was only here, in this forsaken mindscape, that he could bring out their fullest potential. It was here that he had brought them all of his foes, to bear witness to his greatest success and his greatest failing.

"Sit there and don't move. I can't guarantee your safety otherwise." Shirou pulled a gem-encrusted sword out of the ground that had drawings inscribed on its hilt. The moment it was in his hand, his style of movement changed. The way he held the sword shifted as did his entire stance, resembling more of a panther than a human. His walk was light as he stepped forward on the balls of his feet, as if he was ready to pounce.

And he was.

Shirou sprang into action, running in between the blades imbedded into the field to meet the charging hydralisks. Meeting the first, he slashed off its arm, halting its attack, before he stabbed it through its carapace. The slug-like creature erupted into flames as it screeched its final cry. However, he paid it no mind, pulling out a full-length warhammer and smashing the head of the next Zerg, the gravity around it shifting to aid his strike. What came next was a dance that was as chaotic as it was beautiful to watch. He used and discarded weapons as if they were drops in a river rather than the legendary weapons that they were, his fighting style changing immediately to accommodate each and every one of them.

A sword that extends thrice beyond its length. A dagger that drains blood. A lance that propels him forward. A spear that ignores armor. A sickle that freezes. A mace that steals organs. A bladed claw that separates a person into eighteen pieces with a single slash. A bastard sword that inverses the flesh. A staff that steals bones on contact. A ring sword that endlessly follows its target. A pair of katars that allow short range teleportation. A maul that imprints a mark of death. A halberd that pulls in its target from long range. A scythe that displaces time. A flail that rearranges the senses.

It was an endless dance as more and more came from beyond the ring, entering into this world in a never-ending tide. When one died, two more replaced them, stepping over the corpse of their fallen brethren in order to reach him. He slashed, he ripped, he smashed, he crushed, but he never gave in. To do so would be to spit on his ideals, the very same ones that he had only just recovered. That was something he wasn't willing to compromise on.

"Truly, this kind of situation fits my ideal." Shirou chuckled mirthlessly as he slaughtered another hydralisk, ripping it through with a black cleaver. A mutalisk dived, but a sword pulled itself out of the ground and launched itself at the creature. It stabbed the mutalisk in the center, killing it almost instantly. Another of the creatures was slashed in half by a spinning axe. Yet another one was pierced by a spear. Some tried to pull back, but more weapons flew from the ground to give chase, quickly overtaking them.

For someone who believed in the concept of killing some to save many more, to fight off a mindless bug army to save one person was an infinitely better situation to him. He would probably be saving millions more indirectly, for Alaya wouldn't send a Counter Guardian frivolously. Still, even if it had been only for a single person, he still would have taken on the task gladly. Around him, weapons were flying all about, piercing and crushing the mutalisks and hydralisks coming from all directions. The self-controlled weapons were an inefficient use of prana, draining the most but requiring more hits to slay their foes. However, it was necessary to stave off the continuous assault, but he knew he wouldn't be able to last for too long at this rate. He threw the cleaver at an oncoming hydralisk.

"A last stand like this? I can't tell if this is good or bad luck." Shirou pulled out a spear, unmindful of the blood that dripped down his arm and onto the weapon. Numerous wounds covered his body, and there were even spines that were still embedded in him. However, he paid no attention to these. He had suffered through far worse pain than this.

~o~

"What the hell is that?"

From the cockpit of the dropship, James Raynor stood in his marine armor behind the pilot's seat and stared out at the sight ahead of them. There was a dome of fire on top of the only remaining building in the area. Countless hydralisks were scaling that building, climbing up to the top and disappearing into the dome. There was rumbling as the skies around them as well were alight with missile fire and toxic blobs. Raynor could see a mutalisk explode in a spray of blood from a missile in the same breath he saw a wraith crash land into the swarm below.

"Sir, is this the right location?"

"I don't know what psionic trick this is, but that's gotta be her doing. There's no way there would be so many Zerg gathered here otherwise. The rope's fire retardant, right?" Raynor saw the pilot nod in assent. "Then lower the rope into it. We'll do a flyby a few times. That should get their attention."

"But sir, what about the mutalisks?"

"Let the flyboys handle them," Raynor said before he paused. "Actually, forget the rope. Just bring us into that dome."

"But sir—"

"Son, my rangers are dying out there, keeping those Zerg off our backs. We can't afford to waste time worrying about our own safety. Bring us in."

"Yes, sir."

~o~

Sarah weakly got to her feet, nearly stumbling several times in the process. Her breathing was fast and shallow while sweat gathered on her brow. It was getting harder to see clearly, even though she could not take her eyes off the sight in front of her. The white-haired man was practically a blur, the after-image of his coat leaving a red trail. Blood splattered and sprayed as the corpses mounted, yet the onslaught and the retaliation was unceasing.

In the air, all around, countless weapons—beautiful in design and splendor—were stabbing into the opposition. The cries of falling mutalisks and dying hydralisks created a symphony that hurt her ears. Alien and disturbing, the combined sound was like a constant blaring static that made her head ache terribly. Or it could be from her weakened state.

She could feel her psionic energy leaking away, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. It would be so easy, and it was very tempting, to clamp down on the link between them. It called to her, a plea to stop the increasing pain and fatigue she was feeling, as if her body was wasting away, but at the same time, she still held onto her rational thoughts. If she stopped the drain, this psionic mass hallucinatory world that encompassed them would disappear, and that was the only thing keeping them alive from the wrath of the Zerg horde.

Still, as she watched the madness around her, it didn't make sense all the same. How could these illusionary weapons actually harm—much less kill—the Zerg? There were far too many to all be psionic weapons, but the evidence showed otherwise. The plain was littered with blood and alien corpses, a testimony to his power and strength. Valor and courage. Desperation and insanity.

It was getting harder to think. She was even feeling more than a bit faint, not that she would admit it to anyone but herself. Still, she tenaciously held onto her consciousness, biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. The moment she lost consciousness was the instant that this illusion would fall apart. At that moment, they would die.

And she didn't plan on dying today.

A loud roar of a mechanical engine brought her attention upward to the sky. A dropship ripped through the backdrop of gears, distorting the image for a moment as it flew across the sky. It stopped above them, lowering its bulk down as the ramp began to slide open. On that ramp, Jim Raynor in his black marine armor was holding onto a railing as he held out his hand.

"Sarah!"

She felt herself being picking up a moment before she felt the air rushing past her body. At this point, she was struggling just to get a sense of what was going on.

Shirou landed on the ramp, holding the weakened girl in his arms. He handed her off to James Raynor's waiting arms.

"Is she hurt?"

"She's fine, just exhausted," Shirou said as he looked out the closing ramp. The dropship was starting to lift up as the reality marble began to collapse, the smoky backdrop shattering apart like falling glass.

"Take a rest. You been through a lot, and you're in pretty bad shape. We'll handle the rest."

Raynor turned to a nearby marine.

"Get someone to patch him up, and tell the flyboys that we're done here. Get us back to the Hyperion," Raynor said. "Also, tell Matt to get the medbay ready. We got injured onboard."

"Sir, we've a problem."

"God, I hate that word," Raynor said with resignation. "Alright, lay it on me."

"General Duke has taken control of the Confederacy's Ion Cannon on the orbital platform."

"And what does this mean?"

"The Ion Cannon can't shoot towards the planet, but it can shoot anywhere in space. The Hyperion can't escape until it's taken down."

"Damn it. Do we have any ground forces on there?"

"The Commander is in the process of setting up a base on the orbital platform."

"Alright, let's get onboard the Hyperion for now. Tell the Commander to continue operations on the ground. I'll join him when I can."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Author's Note: Alaya is the collective unconsciousness of humanity. I would put it on the same scale as Khala, which is the combined psychic consciousness of the Protoss.

I have not read the Starcraft novels, nor do I ever plan to. This story is based mostly on the games.

I do need beta readers. I would love spelling and grammar corrections, but it's primarily for opinions on the chapters and how to improve them. I'm also really, really worried about OOCness. If you're interested, please send me a message.

This will be a slower effort. I'm glad that I made it to 60k in a month in my last story, but I became eccentric by the end of that. So for this, I'm writing it whenever I feel like it so there won't any set schedule. Thankfully, Vahn volunteered to catch me this time around from the more zany ideas. Also, I want to thank him for his help on beta-ing this chapter.

I don't technically like referring characters by their last name, but some are so well-known by their last names that it's hard to do otherwise. That would be James Raynor. The only other example I can think of is Tatewaki Kuno from Ranma 1/2.

As of 10/11/14, I have made some changes to the chapter. After some discussion with people, I was convinced of the fact that it wasn't necessarily a good idea to have so many questions in the middle of a warzone. To that end, I have removed or shifted around a lot of questions/dialogue directly before and after the Protoss encounter. This is to make it feel more natural and to increase the urgency of the situation, especially when there is no reason for them to delay that long to have such a conversation. Some of the questions and answers will be rehashed for those who read the first version in the later chapters, most probably the next chapter.

As of 10/24/14, Vandenbz had proofread this chapter and now the errors that it had left are gone! Also, some of the wording has been changed around to read smoother. Yay! Big thanks to Vandenbz!


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: As of 10/11/14, I have made some changes to the _first_ chapter. After some discussion with people, I was convinced of the fact that it wasn't necessarily a good idea to have so many questions in the middle of a warzone. To that end, I have removed or shifted around a lot of questions/dialogue directly before and after the Protoss encounter. This is to make it feel more natural and to increase the urgency of the situation, especially when there is no reason for them to delay that long to have such a conversation. Some of the questions and answers removed will be rehashed later.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Ghost's Guardian

By Icura

~o~

Chapter 2

~o~

Shirou stood in front of a vast window in a simple hospital gown. His entire body was bandaged from the neck down, but it wasn't simply for show; he was actually injured badly. Moreover, this body was actually _different_. If this was the same system used for the Holy Grail War, then the wounds could be hidden even if it wasn't healed. However, this wasn't a real body either since he could regenerate his flesh with prana. That meant that this was somewhere in between both, but to what extent, he didn't know. Still, his own storage of prana had been exhausted, and he wasn't willing to pull energy from his unconscious Master just to deal with minor inconveniences.

Blood seeped through the bandages at different intervals, and his wounds occasionally reopened with the slightest movement. In spite of that, he was still standing in front of the window in the hallway. That was because of the sight before him.

Space. Numerous stars twinkled within the vast darkness that stretched out as far as the eye could see. Even if he had enough energy to reinforce his eyes, he doubted he could see very far in this endless depth. It was a sight that was profoundly mysterious to him. He couldn't find any of the recognizable constellations that had often aided his travels.

Just where was he? Was this a parallel world or a completely different planet? Could this possibly be the future? It certainly wouldn't be out of place for mankind to become a spacefaring civilization; it was practically a universal dream. He supposed that was one good thing from being interned in the Throne of Heroes. Its displacement in time allowed him to see sights that he would never have seen otherwise.

He pressed his hand against the glass, feeling the numbing cold through his bandages. Still, it was the same here. War dictated the facts of the world. Even if this was a different galaxy, he knew that war…war never changes.

"You shouldn't be up this soon. I reckon the nurses are searchin' all over the ship for ya," James Raynor said with a smile as he walked up to the window, coming to a stop by the injured man. He wore a perpetually dusty white shirt with a leather combat vest over it and well-worn blue jeans. Taking a glance out the window, a smirk appeared on his lips. "Yeah, that's a sight that never gets old."

Shirou glanced at the man for a second before he returned his gaze to the window. "James Raynor. Marshall, Rebel, Hero of Antiga Prime."

"Ah, I see the nurses been tellin' stories about me. Don't believe everything you hear, okay?" Raynor chuckled. "In any case, call me Jim. What's your name, friend?"

"My name? I have been called…Archer before." It was a title that he had once used before. It seemed appropriate, considering the situation he had been sorted into now, even if it didn't have the many characteristics that classified the Holy Grail system. The only explanation he could think of was that Alaya had something to do with this, but he wouldn't be able to figure out anything while his Master was asleep.

"Archer, huh? By the way you say it, it sounds like a codename."

"It was something like that."

"Were you a Confederate?"

"No."

"Freelance?"

Shirou didn't reply.

"Well, I reckon that excuse would work better if we didn't see how you fight with those psionic tricks of yours when we picked you up from the Confederate capital. Those aren't skills you can just learn on the streets," Raynor said. "But I don't suppose it matters now. We're in the same boat. At least until we get out of this system."

"Where she goes, I go."

"She? You mean Sarah?" Raynor asked. "I thought you two just met."

"I made a promise to protect her," Shirou said. There was no such promise, but the situation was close enough that it could pass for it easily enough.

"That's a one of a kind promise to make."

"It was a one of a kind situation," Shirou replied, causing the other man to chuckle.

"I guess you're right 'bout that. I'd do the same if I was in a Zerg apocalypse," Raynor said with a nod. His face then turned serious. "Still, a man's word shouldn't be given lightly."

Shirou was silent as he stared out into the twinkling darkness of space.

Raynor studied the other man. There was something in the white-haired man's voice that reminded him of something long ago. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was always a man who trusted his instincts.

"Listen," Raynor said. "Why don't you head on up to the Commander's Quarters? That's my room, but I'm letting Sarah rest there. I figured she wouldn't like waking up in a sick ward, not after all she went through. You can look after her until she wakes up. I'll key you into the system."

"Isn't that a bit too trusting?"

"Way I see it, if you wanted to kill her, your best chance would've been on Tarsonis."

"Who's to say I won't kill her here?"

"You could, but even if you were inclined to—and I don't think you are—I reckon that committing murder in a place where you'd be the top suspect isn't on your to-do list." Raynor smirked. "Frankly though, I trust you on this. Usually, I can tell the caliber of a man with five rounds, but it doesn't look like I'll need to. You got the face of a man who's seen more than his fair share of hardship and still fought on."

Shirou frowned.

"Oh, don't give me that. It's not a bad face to have. Not many dependable-looking folks nowadays." Raynor said. "Anyways, got a favor to ask of you."

"I'm listening."

"Take care of her while I'm gone."

"Going somewhere?"

"Just a little business I've to take care of on the orbital platform before we leave." Raynor turned and began to walk away. "Don't wait up for me."

Shirou nodded and shifted his gaze back to the window, to the sight of the twinkling stars set in a vast and deep darkness. It really was an enthralling sight.

~o~

It was a story dyed in red. In truth, it was like a picture book where the beginning and middle were scribbled over; only the end was clear. Even then, an image could still be made out. On the devastated ground, surrounded by flames, the man in red stood alone under the black sun.

There had always been only one path, and he had run with all his might along that singular road. He gave himself no pause or break. There was no one behind him and no one before him, and there certainly wasn't anyone beside him. Since he had no one to wait for, he ran without stopping even once.

He had saved people without being asked to do so, but his intentions were never known.

When asked, he could not give an answer.

He forged through the fire and the pain, never once deviating from his goal, but in the process, he had lost the reason for which he started on this path. No, it wasn't that he forgot it; it was just that it simply ceased to matter. To doubt his way now was to completely reject his existence. If he had been older at the time, perhaps he would have seen it for what it really was, and maybe he wouldn't have lived that path.

It was an incomprehensible answer, a dream that only a child could see. Who would believe such a reason? But in his silence, the suspicion surrounding him only grew. If he had given a simple reason, any reason except the one he had, then maybe things wouldn't have ended as badly as they did. Though, even if he did lie, would his end really have changed? His justice was blind and inconceivable, pushing away those nearest to him.

His logic, his sense, and his reasoning were not normal. It disregarded the "self" and only gave consideration to the "others." Perhaps, that was why, in the end, the ones who destroyed him were the very ones he saved.

Betrayed and imprisoned, he was forced to take in All the World's Evils.

However, even at his execution, the man in red was smiling. He would gladly take on the burden and sacrifice himself because if he didn't, then an entire nation would be become the scapegoat for these crimes. By taking it all, he gave them a future.

He was alone in the end, but that simply meant that there was no more within his sight that needed to be saved.

~o~

Sarah Kerrigan woke up with a gasp, her eyes flaring open. Her heart was racing and sweat dripped down her brow, but she could still see the last image superimposed on her sight. It was only when it started fading that she noticed what was behind it for the first time.

It was an unfamiliar ceiling, plain and white in decor. Turning her head, she saw that the rest of her surroundings were more of the same.

The room itself was Spartan, consisting of only a few pieces of furniture. There was a bedside counter with a picture frame on it. She pushed herself up to take a closer look, wincing slightly. It was an effort to even do that, but she managed it nonetheless. What she saw was an old, faded picture of Raynor along with a group of soldiers, younger and more vibrant than he was now. It looked like something that harkened back to the Guild Wars.

"I see you're awake." Sarah turned her head to see her mysterious white-haired savior walk into the room with a plate of food in each hand. There was a long white apron hanging down the front of his red and black clothes, though he had at least taken off his coat for this.

Sarah stared at him.

He stared back at her.

She slapped herself. The pain told her that she wasn't still dreaming.

"As enjoyable as it is to watch you abuse yourself, the food will get cold." Shirou set one of the plates down on a nearby table. He walked over to the bed and held out the second plate to her.

Sarah looked at the contents of the plate. It was an assortment of meat and noodles that was tastefully arranged, making it look all the more appealing. Her stomach growled at the wonderful aroma emanating from it.

"Are you going to take it, or are you waiting for me to spoon-feed it to you?"

"I can eat by myself just fine," Sarah said indignantly, taking the plate out of his hands. Her arms felt somewhat like jelly, but she wasn't going to admit that, not in the face of his provocation. She grabbed the fork that he held out to her.

"I had never seen most of these ingredients before, but I managed to make a somewhat decent meal. Give it a taste."

Sarah froze, her fork halfway to her mouth with a morsel of meat. Slowly, she lowered the fork back down to the plate.

"Hm? What's wrong?" Shirou asked, not even bothering to hide his grin.

"I was…thinking that you should eat the first bite. You made this dish after all."

"Nonsense. I already tasted it while I was cooking," Shirou said. "Go ahead."

Sarah frowned and looked down at the plate. She really couldn't find any reason to reject it. It looked good, and it smelled wonderful. Still, that didn't mean the taste would be good as well. Taking a deep breath and hardening herself for the trials ahead, she swiftly lifted the fork to her mouth and chomped down on the morsel.

She looked up at him, the fork still in her mouth.

He stared down at her, waiting patiently.

She quietly and humbly pulled the fork out of her mouth and speared another piece on her plate.

Damn it. It was the best thing she had eaten in seven months. No, maybe years. What was this?!

"So how is it?" Shirou was looking at her smugly.

"…decent."

Shirou nodded his head, as if agreeing with her statement. "I thought so too. I'll have to put effort into learning the local cuisine."

Goddamn it. What was he? A god of cooking? Was she still dreaming? She was tempted to stab herself with the fork to find out, but she couldn't bring herself to stop eating. She was half-convinced that she would wake up any minute now and find a viciously mauled pillow next to her. By the time she had the sense to slow down, she had already finished eating everything on her plate.

"Good grief. Did no one ever teach you how to eat properly?" Shirou reached over with a white handkerchief and dabbed the corner of her mouth. "You eat almost as fast as Taiga."

"…I'm not a tiger." Sarah snatched the handkerchief out of his hand. "And I'm not a child either."

Shirou took the empty plate off her lap and walked over to the table. Setting it down, he took the remaining plate—still fresh and hot—and brought it over to her. "Seconds?"

"Aren't you going to eat too?"

"I'm not hungry."

Sarah didn't bother to argue about it as she simply nodded and took the plate out of his hand. The tantalizing smell was already getting to her. At least this time, she had enough self-control to do it at a much slower pace.

"I take it that you like it?" His smugness was apparent on his face.

Sarah had the decency to blush in indignation. "Maybe you should give up on fighting and become a cook."

The smug grin slipped off at once. "I probably would've been happier that way."

She paused in her eating. The way he had said that reminded her of what she had just dreamed about. The images were still fresh in her mind, and they weren't fading like with a regular dream. Slowly, she set the fork down on the plate. "Is something wrong?"

"That was you, wasn't it? Always standing alone even at the end."

"…a dream?"

Sarah nodded her head.

"Typical." He sighed deeply. Perhaps he should have expected this. It was the case in the Fifth Holy Grail War, but he didn't think it would occur here, under these strange circumstances. Maybe that was wishful thinking.

"Are you dead?"

"I have died before."

"So that was…"

"My memories."

Sarah nodded. She didn't doubt the truth of it. She knew that she should, but it was far too vivid and felt far too real for her to even start questioning it. All of her instincts told her that it was simply and irrevocably fact, in spite of everything that questioned the logic of it.

"What did you see?"

"How you died."

Shirou nodded grimly.

"What are you?"

"Merely a Servant," Shirou said. "I was summoned here to protect you."

"Summoned by who?"

"You."

"But I didn't…"

"You were going to die, weren't you?" Shirou crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the bed, though he never took his eyes off the woman. "In that moment, you used your powers as a magus to bring me here."

"I'm not a magus or a mage. I don't use magic or witchcraft. I'm a psychic."

"Psychic?"

"You know. Use psionic powers. Move things with your mind and read people's thoughts."

"And turn invisible," Shirou said, remembering what she did when they were running through the streets of the ruined city.

"Kind of. That's mostly my suit. I just need to feed it enough power to activate it," Sarah began to explain before something caught up to her brain. "Wait, you never heard of a psychic?"

"I have. It was just not as prevalent or as powerful in my era."

"Era? You're talking like you came…from…" Her words slowed down as realization hit her.

"Earth at the end of the second millennium."

"But…but that's like five hundred years ago!"

"It is? Good to know," Shirou said. "Time isn't quite as relevant when you're dead."

"I…I guess it wouldn't be," Sarah said dazedly, her mind whirling with all this new information.

Shirou waited patiently for her. He knew that she had questions, and he had his own fair share of questions. It was possible that there was a cabal of magi on that planet that set up a ritual to summon him, but that would mean sacrificing themselves to do it since the Zerg were invading. If there was one thing he knew, it was that most magi were a selfish lot. Anything they did always seemed to center around research for reaching the Root. No, this certainly wasn't the work of magi. The whole thing reeked of Alaya's machinations. He doubted the girl actually knew anything useful. However, that didn't mean there wasn't a clue. He just had to dig deeper.

Sarah looked up at him and stared. She reached out and pressed the tips of her fingers against his chest.

"How are you still here? I mean alive. Living." It felt solid. Rather, she already knew that it was real. The man had carried her around like she was a rag doll when they were fleeing the Zerg swarm. Still, it felt like something had changed with this new revelation.

"The link between us. You're supplying me with energy to stay within this reality," Shirou said. "If you break the link, I wouldn't be able to last long."

"So you're not really real, are you?"

"I am real."

"That's not what I meant," Sarah said. "That's not your real body."

"No, it's one that was created when you summoned me. You're the only one who's sustaining it."

"So that's why you thought I was a mage—"

"Magus," Shirou corrected.

"Magus," Sarah repeated. "So that makes you my underling?"

"Don't expect me to obey your orders or even listen to your opinion." Before Sarah could speak, Shirou continued. He needed to know why Alaya sent him here and what the main objective was. "What's your goal? What are you fighting for?"

"For someone who calls himself a servant, you don't act servile."

"That's because I'm the best Servant anyone could ask for."

"I don't think I can afford you on my paycheck."

"I'll suffice on your energy."

"Even when you won't listen to me?"

"That's at my own discretion. So tell me your goals and don't lie. I'll be able to tell."

"Pushy, aren't you?" Still, Sarah nodded and began sharing her story.

"It was to create a better life for everyone. The Terran Confederacy had ruled over most of the sector for a very long time, ever since the supercarriers brought my ancestors here, but they had become corrupt and oppressive," Sarah said. "When I was young, I was conscripted to become a psionic assassin: a ghost. I did whatever they told me and killed whoever they said to. It wasn't until the Sons of Korhal rescued me when I was eighteen that I finally got a choice on what I wanted to do. It wasn't hard to decide."

Shirou frowned. The story was emerging, but it was a distasteful one.

"But it's over now. The Terran Confederacy is done for, though I'm not exactly sure what's going on. I need to talk to Arcturus."

"So you have no goal at the moment?" Shirou's frown deepened. "There's something you're not telling me."

"There isn't."

"If that's true, why aren't you happy that your war is over?"

"That's…" Sarah looked conflicted for a few moments, but eventually, she relented. "Jim told me that Arcturus—that's the leader of the Sons of Korhal—left me to die on Tarsonis."

"That's not uncommon." The girl snapped her head toward him to retort, but Shirou cut her off. "Assassins, especially those that know too much, are sometimes killed at the end of a conflict. Replacing one regime with another is often dirty work, and most dislike that kind of information being aired out like dirty laundry."

It was not an unfamiliar subject matter to him. He had been to devastated warzones in his past life. Before then, he had been naïve, but those experiences exposed him to the true weight of human lives. It took a long time for that lesson to sink in, and an even longer time for him to start using the scale that fate forced upon him. The mistake that the pacifists made was to assume that peace between two opposing sides was the best decision. However, more often than not, it was the worse. With nothing resolved, tensions would lead to violence down the line, and the accumulated loss of life would eventually exceed the amount that the other option would immediately grant, and that wasn't even accounting for the fact that another war might start up again.

No, it was better to choose a side and see that through. It was easier to end the war this way, and by finishing it quickly, there would be less deaths and grudges. Revenge and lingering anger were often the cause for renewed conflict. For that reason, he calculated not just the war, but the aftermath as well.

"That's just speculation. I have to know for sure."

"How can someone like you summon me? Is my luck this bad?"

"What do you want me to say?!" She glared at him. "That I'm someone special or have some stupidly grand ambition? For my entire life, I've been trained to be a ghost, to do whatever they tell me to do. When I finally get a choice, I find out now that I might have made the wrong one from someone I only met a couple of months ago.

My life has been like this. Accidents, bad decisions, and choices where I'm fucked no matter which way I go. What the hell do you want me to say? What the hell do you want from me?!"

"I suppose a simple clue was too much to ask for," Shirou grumbled under his breath. Every question he had asked was to prod out everything that he could because one of those answers was bound to be a clue. He should have known better with his luck. He spoke out loud for the next statement. "You don't have to worry over it. Regardless of everything and against my better judgment, I have decided to support you."

"Huh?" Sarah blinked, her anger quickly draining out as confusion replaced it.

"You couldn't have summoned me by yourself. That much energy is more than I can feel in your body," Shirou said. "That most likely means that Alaya intervened and helped you with it."

"Alaya?"

"The collective human unconsciousness, made manifest by the desire of humanity to survive."

"That's…wait, what?"

"Just think of it as a cosmic power. The only reason that it ever interferes in this reality is if humanity is on the brink of annihilation."

"Hold, hold on." Sarah held a hand to her forehead. "Collective human unconscious? Annihilation?" Sarah held another hand to her forehead, pondered those words for a while, and then let her head and hands droop in resignation. "Maybe you should have just let me die back there."

Shirou sighed, as if he was dealing with a child. "That won't do. Alaya wants to protect you, which means that somehow, your death will cause a great disaster. Or at some point in your life, you will prevent the extinction of humanity somehow."

"So what the Protoss said…"

"About a future evil? That's somewhat correct."

"That can't be about me," Sarah said. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do."

"I don't know either," Shirou said. "If I did, I'd lock you in a closet until that time."

Sarah scoffed. "A bit hard to do when you're the one surviving on the link between us."

"I'm not so attached to this life that I'm bothered by this," Shirou said. "You're taking this very calmly."

"Trust me, I'm not." Sarah closed her eyes and raised her head. "How can I just accept that I'm part of some kind of prophecy of doom? That I'm supposed to somehow save _everyone_? What am I going to do? Invent an infestation cure?"

She opened her eyes and shook her head.

"You still haven't really told me anything. The only thing I got out of all that is that I have to survive."

"Yes, that's essentially it. Just live your life as you have been. I'll protect you until then."

"That's not something easily done," Sarah said. "I'm a ghost—basically a psionic assassin—so any day could easily be my last."

"Live your life. I'll follow you and keep you safe." Shirou stared seriously into her eyes. "It doesn't matter where you are or whatever reason you have. This is what I decided."

"Why?" Her hands gripped the blanket tightly. "Why would you want to do that…after all you've been through?"

"Do I need a reason?"

Sarah stared unyieldingly at him.

"I don't have one."

_When asked, he could not give an answer._

Her mind flashed back to the dream. It was just for a moment, but it took her breath away.

"I guess I'll have to take your word for it." Sarah took in a deep breath. "What should I do now?"

"Like I said before, live your life as you want, however you want. I'll be beside you."

"But I don't even know what I want." Sarah looked down at the half-eaten plate of food on her lap. It was lukewarm now. She picked up her fork.

"Does it matter?"

"I don't suppose it does." She speared a piece of meat and popped it into her mouth. It was still delicious even now. "I don't think we even introduced ourselves. Name's Sarah Kerrigan. What's yours?"

"Shirou Emiya."

~o~

Raynor stepped off the ramp of the dropship and into the docking bay of the Hyperion, the mechanical servos of his exoskeleton armor shifting with each move he made. The skull visage on the visor of his helmet was made to look all the more vicious by several spider web cracks. His black armor was marked with bullet holes and more scratches than he could count.

Behind him, the remainder of his squad followed him, their gear in similar states of disrepair. A few were even limping, helped along by their fellow squad mates. Several other dropships were also unloading their cargo of men and machines. All around them, mechanics were rushing about while medics were approaching the most injured of the soldiers to transport them off to the medbay.

Edmund Duke's Alpha Squadron had been difficult for Raynor's Rangers to break through.

Raynor looked around with a frown, popping up his helmet's visor. Even with their experience and expertise, his forces had still suffered quite a few casualties assaulting the entrenched defensive line. For however much he hated the man, Raynor had to admit that Edmund Duke was a formidable general. Not much in terms of wit and cunning, but his brute force tactics were straightforward and quite lethal.

Those Alpha Squadron bastards didn't have much in terms of defenses, but their attacks packed a punch. Platoons of siege tanks, marines, and wraiths had been the primary forces they had to fight through.

In the end, they had broken through. Now, it was time to see how good they were at running.

"Computer, status?"

Nearby speakers blazed to life as the adjutant's robotic voice filtered through. "The Ion Cannon has been rendered inactive. It is no longer able to prevent our escape. The fleet has started leaving planetary orbit."

"How many battlecruisers do we have on our tail?"

"No large-scale ships have been detected in pursuit."

"That can't be right." Raynor's eyes narrowed. "What the hell is Mengsk up to?"

"Error. Question cannot be processed."

"That was rhetorical."

"Acknowledged. Deleting query."

"How long has it been since I left the ship?"

"Four hours, twenty-eight minutes, and forty-two seconds."

"Tell Matt I want the fleet to get ready for Warp jump. I want to get out of here before Mengsk pulls whatever is up his sleeve."

"Acknowledged, Captain." The adjutant began to process the request, but something interrupted it. "Captain, your presence is required on the bridge. Arcturus Mengsk has sent in a request for communications."

"Speak of the devil." Raynor didn't know what that bastard wanted, but it probably wasn't good. He began walking towards the exit. "Wake Kerrigan up. She'll want to be on the bridge for this."

"Sarah Kerrigan is already active."

"Then just tell her to get to the bridge," Raynor said. "Oh, and you better tell her about Mengsk too. Don't want to get her too surprised."

"Acknowledged, Captain."

~o~

Raynor was standing on the bridge, his face grimly set. Off to the side, standing just out of sight, Sarah was leaning heavily on Shirou for support. Matt Horner was sitting at one of the consoles, though occasionally he glanced worriedly at the captain. The other consoles were manned by other bridge crewmembers, each focused on their assigned task.

"Alright, hit it, Matt," Raynor said, steeling himself. This was going to get messy.

The man in question pressed a button on his console. It wasn't long before the three-dimensional holographic image of a sharp-eyed, bearded man appeared onscreen. There was no doubt in all present that this was Arcturus Mengsk, the leader of the Sons of Korhal.

"So what do you want, Mengsk? It's a bit late to be calling to say hello."

"Raynor, for the services you rendered to me, I'm giving you one last chance," Arcturus said. "Return to the Sons of Korhal, and I'll overlook this transgression as a moment of passionate folly. Do not waste all that you have done."

"Well, you can take that offer and shove it up your ass."

"You're giving up everything you've fought for just because of one dead woman?" Arcturus shook his head as if in disbelief. "I thought you were a sensible man, Raynor. I see that I misjudged you."

"Don't talk about her like she's dead."

"Your refusal to accept reality is unbecoming, even in your madness."

"What reality?" Sarah walked in front of Raynor and faced the screen, having left Shirou's side to stand on her own power.

"So you survived," Arcturus said, distaste evident in his voice.

"It doesn't sound like you're happy to see me."

"That's because I'm not."

"So does that mean you did betray me?"

Arcturus narrowed his eyes, and that was all she needed for an answer.

"Why?"

"You always knew this day was coming, Kerrigan."

"Even after everything I did for you?"

"Everything you did? Did you forget that you slaughtered my family? Killed my mother, beheaded my father, and murdered my sister?"

"I didn't forget," Sarah said. "But why now? Why after all this time?"

"This is just the day when your unreliability exceeds your usefulness."

"What?"

"I know what you're fighting for, Kerrigan. The very same ideals that led to you questioning my orders. With this new _Dominion_, I can't afford to have potential threats lurking about, waiting to dig a knife into my back for the sake of misguided ideals," Arcturus said. "There's no place for someone like you in the new empire I'm creating."

"So that's it, is it?" Sarah's face darkened. "You decide to stab me in the back before I could do the same to you. That's what you're saying, right?"

"Indeed. It'd be all too simple for a murderess like you."

"So there was nothing I could've done?"

"You know as well as I did when you joined me that there wasn't."

"I tried to redeem myself for it. I did everything you ordered me to. You even told me you forgave me." Kerrigan's voice was becoming more and more hysterical. "What more did you want from me?!"

"Kerrigan, it seems you've forgotten a very vital fact." Arcturus said. "Ghosts are _meant_ to disappear."

"Damn…damn you to hell, Arcturus!"

"Damn me all you want, Kerrigan, but before this week is done, I'll send you there ahead of me to have a first-hand look at how well you can _burn_."

The monitor flickered out, leaving a blank, empty screen.

Hollow. She felt hollow.

Raynor placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't feel down about it, darlin'." Raynor glanced at where the image of Mengsk had been. "I won't let him get away with it. I didn't fight all this time just to replace one dictator with another."

Before she could respond, an alarm rang through the bridge. The adjutant's mechanical voice filled the room.

"Warp signature detected."

"A warp-in now? From where? It's too close of a distance to warp here from Tarsonis."

"They must have been reinforcements who were originally set to go to Tarsonis." Matt Horner was typing furiously on his console as screen upon screen of information appeared and disappeared. "Jim, several battlecruisers have warped in! They're on an intercept vector."

"I want numbers, Matt," Raynor said.

"Seven battlecruisers. Estimate: fifteen ticks. Wait, we've more incoming."

A dozen more enemy signatures appeared on the map. Fortunately, they didn't warp in on top of them so they had a little bit of leeway before they reached firing range.

"Signal the fleet. We're getting out of here," Raynor said.

"We still need another two hours for the warp drives to be properly tuned," Matt said. "Our regular engines are better than theirs. We can keep ahead of them until we're fully prepared."

The adjutant chose this time to chime in. "Negative. Three vessels in the fleet sustained damage to their regular engines. Overall propulsion is insufficient."

"I'm not leavin' them behind, Matt, and if I know Mengsk, he's gonna herd us into an ambush. Those ships will tear us apart if they catch us," Raynor said. "Tell the fleet to do the jump now. If they miss the point, they're to rendezvous at the coordinates."

Matt typed fervently into the console. "The fleet's informed. We're ready."

"Do it."

Matt activated the Hyperion's intercom, broadcasting his voice throughout the battlecruiser.

"Commencing an emergency warp jump. All hands brace for impact on my mark." Matt held up his wrist and stared down at his watch. Watches that contained gears instead of chips were expensive, but this one had been a gift. He had always stared down at it, watching it work with fascination, though this time, each tick it made seemed to last an eternity. It was only when the hand clicked over high noon that he moved into action. "Mark!"

Shirou felt the world around him shift. It was a strange feeling, like being pulled forward while his feet remained stationary. By the time that he had the sense to adjust his footing, it was over.

"Ship returning to normal space," Matt dutifully reported. The viewing screens showed a completely different star system from the one they were in previously.

"Where are we, Matt?"

"I'm not sure. It looks like we're off-coordinates by a few systems, but I can't know for sure until I can compare the star positions against the map." Matt was typing on the console. "More than that, our warp drives had been strained by the leap. It's going to take some time for the crew to bring them back up."

"How long are we lookin' at?"

"A day, maybe two. The chief engineer is going to have his hands full for awhile."

"I'll buy him a drink after this is all over." Raynor sighed. "I'm more worried about Mengsk finding us in the meantime. We're his enemies now...and now thanks to me, he's got the resources to eliminate all his enemies."

"Don't be hard on yourself, sir. No one could have seen this coming." Matt appeared thoughtful for a moment. "That last conversation we had with him before we escaped the Tarsonis system. If I'm not wrong, it was recorded, as per protocol for ship communications. We can use that to turn his followers against him."

"Worth a try ..." Raynor considered the suggestion. "On the other hand, Mengsk is a master at using propaganda himself. He's probably thought up a counter to that already."

"Perhaps we can try to contact Mr. Liberty?"

"We can." Raynor nodded "Once we know that we're safe."

He turned to look at the two standing off to the side. "You two okay?"

Shirou nodded, but Sarah didn't respond, still looking down as she leaned against the man for support.

"You two should head back and take a rest. We're gonna be here for awhile." As much as it pained him to ignore Sarah's plight, Raynor had his own duties to do. The rescue mission on Tarsonis and the raid on the Ion Cannon had taken its toll on his crew, and that wasn't even mentioning the stress caused by their defection from Mengsk's forces. A quarter of his Rangers had stayed with the Sons of Korhal, so the remaining three-quarters who joined his defiance were leaving behind friends, comrades, and family. The least he could do was go see his crew in person.

~o~

It was this dream again.

Except it was different. Was this the beginning?

The man in red stood on a bloodstained hill, surrounded by corpses. Even in the arms of death, he still sought out his goal. Enthroned within a land where all heroes eventually return to, he was allowed to resume his duties.

It was there that he learned regret.

For a man in a world far too vast for one individual, he had one simple tenet:

Save all those within his sight.

Even if he could not reach out and help the entire world, he wanted those within his sight to be happy. That was all he could work for, all that he could ask for.

But it was here, within this brightly colored prison, that the words changed. They became:

Exterminate all those within his sight.

Upon the world's end, he came and saved humanity by eliminating everyone he could see. Even though he knew the people he saved existed, they were far beyond his sight. At first, he accepted his lot, but eventually, the weight of these summons—where he never saw the happiness he brought, only the pain and agony—created a burden on him.

And he began to regret. The sight that greeted him each time was only of death and destruction. The dark faces of those that drove the world to the brink and the pleading ones of those that did so by accident. Miserable faces. Unsettling faces. Murderous faces.

His blades turned all their eyes into unseeing glass.

Every time he opened his eyes, the purpose was the same. The sight was the same. He slew them all until there was no one left to bear witness to his existence.

Never would he see those that he saved. Never would his efforts be vindicated.

What was he fighting for? Why hadn't he lived for himself? It was too late to even think such a thing, as the mold had hardened long ago. Still, he desperately sought to escape this eternal torture.

Within the throne that enshrined heroes from ages long past, the man sought the means to an end.

~o~

Sarah woke up to the aroma of freshly cooked food. When had she fallen asleep? She couldn't remember. All that she could drag up was the thought that she had been on the bridge. She groggily sat up. Yes, she was on the bridge, talking to…

Arcturus. The thought of him made the memory come floating up along with her bile. Yes, she remembered it all now, and that made her face darken.

"Does it smell that bad?" Shirou asked as he walked out of the kitchen and into the room, wearing the same apron from before. In his hand was a plate with a sandwich on top of it. It was packed to the brim with an assortment of meat and vegetables between two thick slices of bread.

Her mouth started watering as her stomach growled.

"I guess not." Shirou smirked, walking over to the bed and dropping off the plate into her lap. "It's not bad to eat in bed once in awhile, but don't make it into a habit. It's difficult enough to clean food stains off of bed sheets, but getting bread crumbs out is worse."

"You sound like you've loads of experience there," she teased.

"I don't." Shirou looked away uncomfortably.

"Wait, you do?!" Sarah looked suitably shocked.

"Just eat your food." Shirou pulled off the apron and laid it on the nearby table.

Sarah picked her sandwich and bit into it. It was delicious. She savored the taste, chewing it thoroughly. When she took the next bite, she found it strangely salty.

Shirou stared at her for a moment before he wordlessly held out a handkerchief.

Sarah confusedly took it and wiped her mouth. It felt strange. She pulled it away and looked down. The cloth was wet, making the breadcrumbs stick to it. She touched her lip, feeling a moistness dripping down into her mouth. Her fingers followed the path, trailing up her cheek.

Her hands started shaking.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. It was not because they got caught in her throat; the reason was that her mind could not think of anything to say.

"Just eat," Shirou simply said.

So she bit into the sandwich. It was delicious, even as salty as it was. She covered her eyes with the handkerchief, holding it there even as she continued eating.

By the time she finished the sandwich, she no longer needed the handkerchief. She let it drop.

Shirou silently watched her, having taken a seat on the bed.

"…eight years." The words came out slowly. Her eyes were dazed, unseeing. "That's how long I fought for the Sons. Before that, it was for the Confederacy."

Shirou nodded.

"Ever since the Ghost Academy, I was always just following what they told me to do. I was always angry, but I didn't know why. Looking back, I can see that I was barely living," Sarah said. "When Arcturus rescued me, I knew that he hated me. I killed his family.

"But I didn't know what to do. The easiest thing was to follow the road laid out for me. At the time, I thought it was my own decision, but that wasn't it. I was just deluding myself."

Shirou remained silent.

"If I had tried harder, I could've done something else. I knew from the start that this was going to end badly, but I convinced myself that it would be different. Really, it was just the most convenient path. Maybe the reason I believed so much in him was because of convenience." Sarah looked down at the empty, crumb-filled plate. "Now, the Terran Confederacy is dead. Revenge had always driven me, to make them pay for what they did to me, but now that it's done, I feel nothing. I just feel empty.

"What was the point of all this? A better life for everyone? Did I ever really care about that?" Sarah gripped her blanket. "I'm not like you. I can't fight for others."

"My path is not one that I'd wish for people to follow."

Startled, Sarah glanced up at him. It was just for a moment, but she thought she saw a haunted look on his face. Slowly, the memory of the dream came back to her. He lived a harsher life, didn't he? "Why did you do it?"

"Just for a stupid reason. It doesn't matter."

"Hey! I can't be the only one baring my soul."

"What is this? 'Share our sordid past' time? I never asked for this."

"Are you really going to fight me on this?"

"I'm just letting you know."

"Noted." Sarah waited, but when it looked like Shirou wasn't going to talk, she glared at him. "Well?"

"Fine. When I was a child, there was a disaster where everyone died. I would have died too, but someone saved me." Shirou said. "I saw how happy he looked when he saved me. I thought that I'd be able to become that happy if I did the same thing. So I made a promise."

"A promise?"

"A silly promise." Shirou looked pensive. "The fire took more than just my parents. It took away my life. I couldn't remember anything, but I felt survivor's guilt. I was an empty shell plagued by the souls of the dead. I was broken from the start."

Sarah's expression slightly cracked at the last statement.

"I longed for that moment of pure bliss that I saw on his face. I thought, 'Ah, if I save someone, I'll become happy too'." Shirou's eyes turned bitter.

"Do you regret it?"

"No. Maybe at one time, but a stupid, idealistic kid showed me the value in that childish ideal."

"What will you do now?"

"Save as many people as I can." Shirou stared straight at her. "That means keeping you alive to do whatever you're supposed to do to prevent the crisis."

"What if I'm actually the cause of the crisis?"

"Then I'd kill you."

A chill ran down her spine. It wasn't the words, but the way he said it like it was simply fact. The finality and lack of hesitation in that statement brought her back to those dreams. The silence seemed to stretch as she gauged him.

"Does it bother you?"

"No," Sarah said without hesitation, surprising herself.

"You're a strange woman."

"Pot calling the kettle black."

"Then that makes us a couple of strange people."

"I guess we are." Sarah felt the corner of her lips slightly curve upward. "Well, we already were. I'm a ghost, and you're a real ghost. I can't think of anything stranger than—"

Their conversation was interrupted by a chime over the announcement speakers. On a spacefaring ship, especially in wartime, it was absolutely necessary for every room to have them. Everyone needed to be informed that a battle had begun or an accident had taken place before the casualties could rise from ignorance. They both immediately fell into silence.

"This is Jim Raynor speaking. Is this damn mike workin'? Oh, it is? Right, this is Jim Raynor speaking."

Sarah rolled her eyes.

"I just want to say a few things so just hear me out. We all knew what we were gettin' into when we left the Sons of Korhal. I'm not sayin' that this is the best path or even that it is the right path…"

~o~

"…but it's the one I'm takin'. We've left behind friends and family behind because we didn't like what Mengsk was doing. I fought because I wanted to create a better future for this sector. I didn't fight against the Confederates just to put another tyrant on the throne."

"I'm not a good man. I just do what I feel is right. That means cutting loose from Mengsk. I don't know what we'll do from here. We been through a lot already, and something tells me that there'll be more before this is through.

"I know y'all are worried about the future and where we're goin' from here. First, we're going to meet up with the rest of the fleet. From there, we'll see where we can go. It's been a rough time for everyone, but I been with you boys since Mar Sara, and I don't plan on givin' up anytime soon. I know I can trust my back to each and every one of you, and I'll do my share of watching yours.

"When we left Mengsk's army, we left our past behind us. That belongs to the boys that stayed behind with the Sons. I don't blame them for their choice because our path is the hardest, but we're no longer Rangers.

"From here on out, we're the _Raiders_. You are and will always be one of my boys. Raynor out."

James Raynor pressed a button on the console, cutting off the microphone. He blew out a deep sigh when he heard clapping. He gave an annoyed glance at Matt Horner.

"That was a good speech, Jim."

"No, it wasn't. I was never the oratory type, Matt."

"That didn't seem to stop you here."

"They needed to know where we stand. I've been around the ship, and things had been looking pretty bleak. We're still recovering from the last battle, but it doesn't hurt to raise morale."

"No, it doesn't."

Raynor walked over to the table that displayed a holographic map of the region. "This place seems familiar."

"It should be. This was one of the places where the Guild Wars took place," Matt said. "I bet there's still a Confederate mining operation around here."

"Is it now?" Raynor asked. "Don't leave me hangin'. Where are we?"

"The Char system."

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

Author's Note: Thanks goes out to Carl Ogren, Starspawn10, and Vandenbz for the betaing!


	3. Chapter 3

Ghost's Guardian

By Icura

~o~

Chapter 3

~o~

Matt Horner rubbed his eyes in a futile attempt to stop the burning sensation he could feel coming from them. He should have already gotten some rest by now, but he had stubbornly refused to. There was only one simple reason for overworking himself: they were still running for their lives.

There weren't currently any enemy ships on their tail, but given time, he had no doubt they would gain a lead on them. Mengsk wasn't going to leave them alone; not after what they did. Even with a warp jump as random as the one they took, it would only be a matter of time before it was traced. That was why it was important to get as far away from the exit point as soon as possible.

And that was also why they were now slowly navigating through an extremely narrow and ever-changing passageway through an asteroid field.

An asteroid field was dangerous to navigate, making it impossible for a fleet of ships to safely travel through. That would delay whatever fleet that Arcturus Mengsk sent after them by forcing said fleet to send out scout ships to trace their passing and _then_ circle around the entire field. It wasn't a great tactic, but it would give them extra time to allow the warp drive to stabilize.

Still, that didn't mean the rewards outweighed the risk. It was a dangerous maneuver with the results being somewhat of a crapshoot. While it was possible to gain a few extra days from this, if the enemy fleet had apt scouts and navigators, then that lead could easily be reduced to only a couple of extra hours. Still, it was a gamble they had to take. He just hoped that it wouldn't be their last.

When navigating asteroid fields, it was necessary for periodic radar pings to be used in order to map the current positions of the asteroids. Of course, it wasn't possible to dodge every single piece of rock so the smaller ones had to be ignored. Still, to Matt, each dent on the hull of the Hyperion irritated him. Even if this was a battlecruiser made to endure much deadlier obstacles, he hated taking unnecessary hits.

He liked to consider himself a perfectionist, but that wasn't quite right; he had fudged and redefined the line more times than he cared to remember. Sometimes, it was out of necessity, but more often than not, it was just because of convenience.

Still, it wasn't like he was the navigator. He was only the commanding officer here, and the situation would probably turn out the same even if he wasn't here to keep watch. There were no enemies to fight at the moment.

So why was he still awake?

"Well, why are you still awake?" Matt stared up at the voice to find the leader of the newly christened band of rebels.

"Sir," Matt said, dropping his hand from his eyes. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Yeah, you did." Jim Raynor walked up to the other man. "And when you start mutterin' those kind of questions to yourself, then I think it's high time you get to bed."

"I'll do it after we're out of the field."

"They don't need you out here," Raynor said. "They need their newly promoted Captain well-rested and thinkin' straight. If a fight's coming, I rather have your brain workin' at its best."

"Is that an order?"

"Do you want it to be?"

"No." Matt shook his head as he stood up from his seat. "That won't be necess—"

"Captain!" One of the bridge members looked away from his console, raising his hand to catch Matt's attention. "Our sensors picked up a strange reading coming from a nearby asteroid."

The sleep deprivation was wiped off Matt's face in an instant. "Confederate miners?"

The man turned back to his console and typed furiously on it. "No, it's something different. It's…it's moving!"

"Bring it on screen now!"

The main viewing screen flickered momentarily before an image formed. A dark hush fell on the crew as they watched a giant, organic monstrosity emerging from a hole in a giant asteroid. It used a multitude of tentacles from its underside to push itself out, digging trenches on the surface of the asteroid from its efforts. It had a sharp arrow-like head, with two ripper tusks, which was small in comparison to the rest of its large, bulbous body.

Raynor whistled. "You don't see that every day."

Matt could only stare in shock, his mouth barely forming the words. It looked like a whale and an octopus that had been spliced together to create only a creature that could only come from the darkest nightmares. By this time, it had completely pulled itself out, along with the second half of its body which contained what looked like a giant egg-sack that was even larger than the creature's anterior.

"What is that thing?"

"Now's not the time. It's headed our way." Raynor pointed at the screen where the organic vessel began speeding forward, gaining momentum by reaching out with its tentacles to nearby asteroids and pulling itself forward.

Matt blinked, wiping away his surprise. His face and resolve hardened. "I want everything on it. Light it up!"

~o~

The Leviathan pulled itself forward, gaining velocity as the laser batteries of the Hyperion peppered its flesh. Blood and specks of hardened carapace broke free, causing it to bellow mildly in annoyance as it continued on its path. It was unmindful of the fact that some of the Zerg that it was carrying within itself were sent free-floating into space from the gaping, new wounds, but it could hardly be blamed for its callousness. They were an insignificant number of the overall creatures that inhabited its body. It pulled itself to the side, dodging a concentrated blast from the Hyperion's Yamato cannon.

It was not like other Leviathans. It and its brethren were made for one specific purpose, and that was to ambush the Protoss in the aftermath of a planetary infestation. The Protoss were always quick to send out purging fleets to newly infested planets, so their arrival was like clockwork, making them predictable. It didn't take long for the Overmind to make use of that fact.

In order to deal with the technologically advanced race, all the chambers inside the Leviathan necessary to birth any flying units were thrown out, thus making this series of Leviathans much smaller and thinner than usual, enough to hide within the confines of a large asteroid or by cobbling together the wreckage of a fleet. What growing chambers it did have were dedicated solely to breeding the most basic of ground units in order to maximize its swarming potential. Its underside sported an unusual amount of specially modified impaler colonies with even more hidden within its carapace, more than enough to quickly tear through a Protoss ship's energy shield. The inside of the creature was designed to be like a honeycomb so every new wound that ate deep enough into its flesh to expose a chamber to the vacuum of space was easily sectioned off and sealed.

The Leviathan screeched and roared as it closed the distance, one of its tentacle maws smashing into and biting down on the side of the battlecruiser. The rest of its tentacles began to strike out at the laser batteries, breaking apart and ripping out each turret that was firing at it. Numerous impaler tentacles appeared out from underneath its carapace and stabbed into the ship to hold itself in place.

The Leviathan began to grow eager as it felt the psionic energy inside the vessel. It was here, just as the Cerebrate Zasz had told his master it would be. A brood of Zerg began to congregate inside the length of one of its tentacle maws. Without waiting for them to fully gather, the Leviathan speared the tentacle maw into the ship, piercing straight through the metallic hull with ease and injecting its vanguard into the Hyperion.

~o~

The alarm continued to blare as Sarah Kerrigan finished suiting up into her ghost ware. The lines on the skin suit started to glow as her psionic energy began running its course through the armored clothing. She began stretching her body, checking herself for any kinks left over from her long sleep. It wouldn't do to trip in combat from her leg falling asleep on her.

She didn't feel any of the fatigue that previously plagued her, and her injuries weren't really much to talk about. In fact, it was a miracle that she had escaped with only a few scratches when the planet was practically a deathtrap. She knew exactly why, but it still irritated her just the same. She wasn't some damsel in distress to be "rescued" by some mystery man, and yet that was what had happened.

Speaking of her mystery man, Sarah looked over to where Shirou was in the room. It was only then that she noticed that he had his back turned to her.

"Well, aren't you the gentleman." Sarah walked over to the dresser where a rifle was lying on top of it. She didn't mind whether he saw her body or not; this was a war, and modesty had no place in it.

Shirou glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. "I've seen better."

She sent him an obligatory glare, but she didn't bother to retort as she picked up the rifle and examined it. It was a C-10 Mark VI, a fully automatic rifle capable of being a powerful sniper rifle as well. These types of weapons, due to their power and versatility, were often unwieldy, though she had already become used to its quirks a long time ago. In fact, she had used a customized version of the rifle down on Tarsonis, even though she had dropped it when her situation seemed hopeless. The chaos following Shirou's arrival had prevented her from recovering it. This one didn't have all the specific modifications that catered toward her tastes, but it was standard enough that it wouldn't be hard to adjust to.

Picking up a clip from a stack of them on the dresser, Sarah looked into it.

Canister rounds.

These were different from regular bullets in that they were larger, meant to carry a payload inside its bulk. This particular magazine had a high explosive payload, but she knew that at least one of the other magazines had lockdown rounds, which would release an electromagnetic pulse on impact that would temporarily disable electronics. They wouldn't be useful at all against the Zerg.

The alarm was quickly replaced by a voice. "This is Captain Matt Horner speaking. The ship has been boarded by Zerg forces. All essential crewmembers are to report to battle stations. All non-essential crewmembers are to evacuate to designated secured sites immediately. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill. The Hyperion is under attack by Zerg forces. All essential crewmembers are needed at assigned stations. All non-essentials are to proceed to evacuation sites until further notice."

"What?!" Sarah quickly slotted a magazine into her rifle and chambered the first bullet. "It hadn't even been long since the alarm started."

"This doesn't happen often?" Shirou asked.

"More like never. Zerg don't invade ships; they destroy them," Sarah said. "Any kind of invading is usually because one of the passengers is infected and starts an infestation. Those never end well."

"What happens to them?"

"They lose their minds and become monsters. You've to put them down before they kill everybody."

Shirou's eyes narrowed. This was sounding more and more like the Dead. "Puppets?"

Sarah stared at him for a moment before turning away. "You could say that." She began to head toward the door. "Let's get moving before things get crazy."

"Do you know where we're going?" Shirou followed closely behind her.

"No, but it's probably either the bridge or medbay. Both are essential locations," Sarah said, pushing the button on the wall next to the door. It slid open to reveal a hallway teeming with people rushing about. "Or we could just follow them—"

The sound of ripping metal echoed through the hallway as the wall burst inward. A giant worm-like creature sheared right through the metal and opened up with a loud growl, sending a quake through the hallway that shook several people off their feet. Its maw spread completely open, revealing giant teeth as purple slime spewed from its mouth, covering the floor and some crewmembers in it. The screaming and running of the bystanders began in earnest when zerglings and hydralisks started flooding out of the open maw, their own ravenous cries adding onto the chaotic cacophony.

"Or not," Sarah said as she swiftly brought up her rifle and fired a shot, catching a hydralisk in the jaw. The creature's head spun at the impact, but it recovered quickly enough and turned toward them with growl. Another shot entered through the gaping wound and exploded, rupturing its throat and spine. Even as it went down, a zergling already ran past its body to reach her, but a rifle burst shredded it apart.

Shirou charged in, his black and white curved short swords forming in his hands. He dashed in between the fleeing people. He reversed his grip on his left sword and caught a zergling mid-leap, shearing it straight through the middle. His other sword stabbed into the throat of a hydralisk, but he leaped back, pulling his sword out as the hydralisk retaliated with a swing of its scythed forearm. Besides a wet gurgle, it showed no signs of acknowledging the injury as it charged at him. He stepped back into the hydralisk's range and leaned forward to duck underneath a vicious swipe. Bringing up his swords, he scissored them across the creature's throat, ripping out the flesh and finishing the job. Gunshots echoed around him as some of the assaulting Zerg's heads exploded in a splatter of gore.

Sarah popped out the empty magazine, tossing it away carelessly as she jammed a new one into the C-10 canister rifle with practiced ease. It hadn't been hard to adjust to the new weapon, but at this range, it was impossible to miss regardless. She pulled the trigger just as the first round was chambered. The bullet, filled with its explosively volatile payload, was launched into the spiraling path within the barrel and out the muzzle, accompanied by a flash of spark. The bullet sped between the last fleeing crewmembers, barely missing them by a few inches, to hammer into the eye of the hydralisk behind them. It traveled through the viscous interior of the eye, only stopping when it escaped out the back and hammered into the bone plating just before the brain. The chemicals within the bullet mixed and reacted, exploding outward. The hydralisk screeched in pain as blood and gore burst copiously out of its eyehole. It swung its blades blindly, swaying from side to side before it finally toppled over against the sidewall and slid down heavily.

Shirou threw his swords at the oncoming Zerg before a pair of katars formed on his hands. He punched the weapons forward, piercing two zerglings through their gaping mouths. Ripping them out, he poured his prana into the katars and disappeared in a flash of light.

Sarah stepped back in surprise as another flash sparked right next to her. However, the person standing on that spot was Shirou, who was holding out his empty hand toward the hallway filled with zerglings and hydralisks.

"Rho Aias!" A huge, transparent pink flower appeared before his hand, blocking off the entirety of the hallway. It shimmered as blades, teeth, and spines clattered futilely against the barrier. Shirou turned his head slightly to glance at those behind him. "I'll hold them off. Go!"

Some of the crewmembers that had stopped to stare in shock at the scene began fleeing once again at his words.

"Sarah, that means you too. Get out of here!"

"We're in this together," Sarah said defiantly, holding up her rifle.

"No, there are others to save." His eyes narrowed slightly as one of the petals began to darken.

"I'm not leaving you behind." She was reminded of what happened on Tarsonis. More than that, she remembered the dream that ended in betrayal.

"I can handle myself."

"It doesn't matter. We're getting out of here together."

"You've your duties, and I have mine. All you're doing is getting in my way," Shirou said. "Go. Don't make me repeat myself again."

"Well, that's the last time I worry about you." Sarah slung her rifle over her shoulder, though she couldn't keep a frown off her face. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. There were too many people that she needed to make sure were still alive. Still, that didn't make things easier. "Just don't die, okay?"

"I won't," Shirou said. "If you're in trouble, call for me. I'll hear."

Sarah was tempted to say something about luck, but she didn't want to tempt fate. She simply nodded and turned away. Without a glance back, she ran down the hallway, chasing after the fleeing crewmembers.

Once she was far enough away, Shirou began to smile. It looked like being a hero of justice was going to be a lot simpler here. There was no moral dilemma to deal with, just one extremely difficult objective, but at least it was within sight. _That_ made all the difference.

Shirou yelled out a battlecry as he shoved Rho Aias forward before him and charged just as the first petal finally vanished, inflicting a wound upon his body with its disappearance. Zerglings and hydralisks were slammed into the advancing shield only to be pushed back into their brethren as if by a bulldozer. Another petal wavered from the heavy impacts, but he pushed forward relentlessly, crushing them against each other. By the time the petal finally broke, he had already shoved the swarm past the gaping maw of the tentacle.

Without waiting for them to get to their feet, Shirou turned and rushed into the darkness of the gaping maw just as it closed behind him and pulled its worm-like bulk out of the hallway. It was dark, but a quick application of energy to his eyes allowed him to see easier in the dark. There were zerglings and hydralisks ahead of him.

The interior of the tentacle began to contract, shrinking the tunnel to obstruct him.

"Foolish." Kanshou and Bakuya formed in his crossed hands. He threw them both, letting the spinning blades travel along the fleshy walls, ripping into them as they moved onward. The attraction between the blades caused them to meet in the middle of the tunnel, both of their rotating edges pushing against each other to increase their momentum. The creatures had no way of dodging these deadly blades. But he wasn't done yet.

Shirou rushed forward through the bloodbath as he formed blades and sent them whirling down the drenched path. The tentacle itself was contracting and expanding at random, and he could feel that the entire thing was swinging through space randomly by the uneven shifting under his feet, but he was unaffected by this. He continued his sprint down past the endless blood sprinklers with only one goal in mind.

All too soon, Shirou reached the other end of the path and burst out through it. Covered in the blood of countless monsters, he was free-floating in the air inside a cavernous room with walls made of flesh and filled to the brink with masses of Zerg down below. The moment he landed on the floor, he dashed forwards, his black and white swords a whirl of motion. If there was one thing he learned, it was that Zerg were unwilling to shoot through one another.

He left a trail of blood and limbs in his path as he sliced and diced, never pausing for even a moment in his run. Rarely did he ever get an outright kill, but he didn't need to; all he needed was to get through. If there was any surprise, the zerglings and hydralisk didn't show it as they massed in thicker and thicker groups, slowing down his progress.

"This is getting tedious." Shirou jumped onto the armored head of a hydralisk, using it as a platform to leap three stories into the air. Summoning a black bow into his hand, he released a bundle of arrows at once to form a row on the wall. The entire structure shook, as if in agony, but he ignored it as he landed on the first of the embedded arrows. Like stepping stones, he ran across the line of arrows, neatly avoiding the shrieking Zerg down below.

It was possible to run along the lengths of the wall, but considering that it was the inside flesh of a giant space-faring creature, he didn't want to risk it. It could be uneven and slippery, and there was no way to know if it was even firm enough that his feet wouldn't just sink in. In such a place like this, one spot on the wall could be perfectly fine while another could be the exact opposite, and that wasn't even mentioning any defense mechanisms it might have. No, it was better to make his own path here.

He half-expected them to fire those spines at him, especially with the numbers they had on the ground floor, but when they didn't, he smirked. It looked like they didn't want to damage the giant creature they were residing in. He released more arrows, creating more stepping stones as another shudder went through the structure.

A small spine crawler tentacle detached from the wall and swung at him with its sharp, arrow-pointed head. Sparks flew as he used his left sword to parry the blow, letting the tentacle's head slide along the length of the blade. His right curved sword hacked down on the body, biting in deep but not cutting through as he expected. Whatever it was composed of, the tentacle was as hard as iron. He ripped out the blade, ignoring the spray of blood.

Shirou rotated his body as he stepped forward, using the momentum to bring his blades down once again on the wound, sheering it straight through and sending the top half of the spine crawler down to the depths below. The stump poured out a fountain of blood as a quake ran through the structure, but he ignored those as he ran past and leaped high into the air.

The two short swords were dispelled from his hands and was replaced by a menacing metallic blue lance that was twice the length of his body and just as wide as his torso. He aimed the weapon straight at what looked like fleshy double doors and poured prana into it. The bottom of the weapon's hilt ignited as the blade shined an almost blinding blue color. He disappeared in a blur as the lance rocketed him forward from zero to near the speed of sound in an instant.

The double doors exploded outward in a massive splatter of gore. He rose from the bloodied crater he created, crimson dripping from his eyes and ears. The concussive force and impact had been too much for him to safely handle, but he hadn't sustained too many injuries from it, though he would have to take stock of them later. He ran forward into the thankfully sparser corridor. Behind him, the masses of Zerg gave chase, squeezing through the entrance he had created.

~o~

"Open up. We've wounded here."

Sarah released the button for the intercom as she stood in front of the medbay doors with a group of survivors. While she portrayed a confident front—something that was very necessary in this situation—the rest of the crewmembers she had found were pale and shaking. Even with the three marines she had picked up along the way, all of them were still looking down the corridors on their left and right nervously. The reason for this was obvious.

The hallways were littered with corpses, Terrans shredded apart until they were near unrecognizable as human beings. They could only be categorized as scraps of meat, the kind that could easily be part of one person or a dozen. There were a few Zerg corpses here and there, but they were far less in number than the mangled limbs that were scattered about. Not to mention the new red paintjob the hallway gained was more than just ominous. Thankfully, she had gotten used to the smell enough that she didn't feel the urge to puke, but some of the other crewmembers were visibly holding it in, despite having gone through several corridors filled with a very similar aroma.

Her heart was racing as her ears listened for the slightest sound. Any sound, whether it was from a Terran or a Zerg. However, there was nothing but silence as the seconds ticked on.

"They should've answered by now." A nervous female engineer was standing off to the side, scratching furiously at her arm. "They're doctors. Doctors wouldn't let us die like this, right?"

"They'll let us in even if I have to—" Sarah paused as she spotted something in the slit between the doors. She ran a finger along it and brought it up to her eyes. Blood. Still wet. Wiping it off, she took a step back and held out her hands. "You marines, grab a hold of the doors and pull them open when they start to budge."

"Huh?" One of the marine turned to face her. "What are you…"

"Just do it!" Sarah could feel her energy pulsating from her body as a glow began to emanate from her. She curled her fingers and slowly pulled her hands apart as if she was prying something open. Metal screeched as the doors started to separate.

The marines were quick to grab a hold of the doors, one on each side, pulling at the inner edge of each door. They were halfway through before she gave a final push, slamming the doors completely open. She nearly stumbled from the effort, but the engineer was quick to grab a hold of her.

"What in the bloody hell?" One of the marines stepped into the medbay, his armored boots splashing in the puddle of blood. It was like the nightmarish scene that had been repeated throughout the ship's corridors, but this time, it was in an enclosed room that seemed to have been packed to the brim. Bodies were lying on top of each other, mauled and mangled. There were body parts and gore eschewed everywhere as well as bullet holes. It was obvious from the conditions of some of the corpses that friendly fire hadn't been something they were concerned with.

"They were packed like sardines. If the Zerg got into there, there would be just as much death from friendly fire." Sarah's eyes hardened as she saw the vent that had been broken open. She pointed at the vent. "They must have come through there."

"Shit." The marine took another look around. "It's gonna be hell getting supplies out of this mess."

"Don't," Sarah said. "It's too dangerous in there. It'll take too long to find usable supplies in that, and we don't know if any of them are infested." She looked at the marine with concern. "Come out. Now."

"This is a goddamn massacre." The marine nonetheless obeyed and stepped back out. "Goddamn Zerg and zombies."

"They came in through the vents so that means they may have access to everything," Sarah said.

"But that doesn't make any sense. These vents are Zerg-proof," the engineer said. She pointed up, searching for where the vent in the ceiling of the hallway would be. "There's a laser system inside there that would make mincemeat of them. There is no way that…" Her voice trailed off as her hand started to shake.

Where she was pointing at was the opening of a vent with its grill still attached. However, there was blood dripping from it. One of the marines reached up to the grill and yanked it off with a grunt. The laser-sliced body of a zergling slipped out and dropped to the floor. The marine flicked on his armor's collarbone flashlights and looked into the shafts.

"What do you see?" Sarah asked.

"Clogged full of dead Zerg. Must have used the corpses to push forward past the laser defenses," the marine said.

"That's right, isn't it?" The engineer was muttering with wide eyes. "If they covered the sensor with enough dead bodies, then it wouldn't be able to detect anything. But that's…that's insane!"

"They're called the swarm for a reason," Sarah said as she turned to look down one of the hallways. "We wasted enough time here. We have to make it to the bridge before they come back. One of you marines, contact the bridge and inform them of the situation with the vent system. They can probably override the sensors and clean it out."

"You sure this is a good idea? It could already be swarming with Zerg from here to there."

"Maybe, but it's better than staying here," Sarah said as she began walking. "Let's go. I want chatter at a minimum. We don't need more Zerg coming down on us."

~o~

"I thought I grew out of being in situations like this." Shirou stabbed his black curved sword down, burying it into the skull of a zergling. With a quick kick, he sent the dead creature flying off his blade. Of course, that wasn't the end of it.

He was completely surrounded by a crowd of zerglings and hydralisks that filled the hallway. Both ways were blocked off, and some of the Zerg were even clinging to the walls and ceilings to prevent his escape. Truly, this was a situation that his younger self would have gotten himself into.

He stood ready with both curved short swords, but he wasn't in an ideal condition to face this onslaught. If he had a real body instead of this one, it would have already been in pieces by now. He had more wounds on his body than he could count and nothing to show for it.

He was looking for something—anything—that could put a stop to this giant menace, but it was like a maze. Everywhere he went, the fleshy corridors looked absolutely the same. The path was so twisting and winding that were it not for his own ability to internally visualize a map and have a good sense of direction, he would have thought that he was going in circles. Everything inside this maze of a ship conspired to end him. The only saving grace was that he didn't have to deal with any projectiles. Otherwise, the narrowness of the many hallways would have become a deathtrap even for him.

Still, this was frustrating. Where was its weakness? An engine room would have been nice—or whatever was propelling this massive creature. Finding the heart or the brain would have been a good alternative if the creature hadn't been so alien that it could be anywhere—or anything. He had gone in without a plan, and the results had shown that.

Worse, he was running out of time. He was heavily injured so it wouldn't be long before he was overwhelmed.

It looked like there was only one last thing he could do.

"And I thought I was done being a fool," Shirou muttered, though it held no hint of bitterness. Perhaps the path he had chosen would always end this way, no matter what he did. However, he would never regret it.

He had learned not to.

The path ahead was one where there was no return. There was only one weapon in his arsenal that was strong enough that the degradation of reality wouldn't diminish it too much for his purposes. Even borrowing from the link between him and his Master, the power would be far too much to handle. There was one fact that he knew as an undeniable and irrevocable truth.

Wielding this sword could only end in certain death.

Yet, saving the lives of everyone on the ship at the cost of his own... That was cheap, wasn't it?

His considerable amount of magic circuits flared to life as he fed energy into them, sparking the conversion process. Prana flooded out, and a sense of melancholy seemed to take hold of his mind. His hand reached out, both in the real world and inside his reality marble. Taking a hold of the blue hilt, he transcended both realities for a fleeting moment as he brought the majestic weapon from one dimension to the next.

The creatures around him backed away as the sword came into existence, a blindingly bright golden light shining off of said blade.

Static. Shirou's sight failed for a second as he raised the sword up, feeding all of his prana into the weapon. Numbness. His mind was starting to lose reason as his form began slipping away, losing the solidity that anchored his existence to this realm, but there was no turning back, for he had no regrets.

"Ex—"

This was the only path.

"—caliber!"

He swung the sword down with all his might, releasing the anti-fortress Noble Phantasm. For a moment, he simply smiled as his world turned white.

~o~

The moment that Sarah stepped onto the bridge, she found herself completely overwhelmed by the amount of chatter and shouting that filled the whole room. There were workers and technicians running about while communications officers were constantly on the line with groups of soldiers who were stuck elsewhere. In the middle of it all, Matt Horner was standing in front of a three-dimensional holographic image of the ship projected by the table. On it were numerous green and red dots that indicated friendly and enemy forces. From the masses of red on the map, she could tell that it wasn't looking too good.

"What's the status, Horner?"

"You made it, Kerrigan. Thanks for the report. We overrode the vent's security system so it's actively cleaning them out every minute or so, but it was too late to save several chokepoints. However, we managed to contain the majority of them here and here." Matt pointed to two points on the map of the ship. "The other pathways have been sealed off, but I don't know how long they will last."

"Where's Jim?"

"I'm right here, darlin'. It's good to see you're doin' well." The door that she had come through, guarded by several marines, had already slid open as Raynor and his group of soldiers stepped onto the bridge. Behind them was a small gathering of people that they had rescued from deeper within the ship. Raynor nodded his head at a nearby marine. "Get these people situated."

"Yes, sir." The marine nodded and started herding the gathered people.

Raynor walked up to the table. "Give me a sit-rep."

"Things are looking bleaker by the moment. We don't have enough marines to deal with this invasion."

"That doesn't sound good, Matt."

"That's because it isn't. The Magistrate has taken command of both chokepoints, but it's only a matter of time before they're overwhelmed," Matt said. "However, it's not as urgent as it was earlier. The Zerg assault is slowing down for some reason."

"So the Commander hasn't bit the dust yet," Raynor said. "Options?"

"There's only one I can think of. The Zerg ship disabled or destroyed most of our laser batteries on the top, but it didn't touch the Yamato cannon or the turrets on the underside of the ship."

"Why can't we use it now?" Sarah asked.

"Aiming it is the problem," Matt said. "The Zerg ship is stationary so the situation is ideal, but the tentacles are preventing us from turning the Hyperion. If we could just break a couple of those tentacles on the ship, we can get a good firing angle."

"Well, that sounds right up my alley. What 'bout you, darlin'?" Raynor asked. "Think you're up for a little demolition run? I figure a couple of charges should be enough to blow those tentacles off."

"If I didn't know you well enough, I'd think you were insane," Sarah said, "but you can count me in. If we don't do something, this ship's not going to last."

The ship began to shudder violently.

Sarah fell to her knees, feeling a large pull from her link with Shirou. She unsteadily stood up even as the drain increased exponentially.

"Sir, there's something happening with the Zerg vessel," one of the technicians manning a console said.

"Bring it on screen," Matt calmly ordered.

The technician complied and typed in the command. Within a few moments, the image appeared on the main screen for everyone to see. The Leviathan was writhing in agony as it pulled its tentacles violently out of the Hyperion. A bright beam of light shot out from within the space-faring creature, ripping through the latter's carapace and flesh.

"What the hell?" Raynor murmured the question as he stared at the screen.

The adjutant appeared in small window in the corner of the screen. "Breach in multiple sectors. Oxygen levels decreasing. Decompression setting in. Sealing exposed chambers." The image of the adjustant disappeared as blast doors were activated all across the ship to seal off the breaches. Many had already been activated to seal off the Zerg incursion, but there were more that was needed to contain the decompression caused by the tentacles' abrupt exit.

"Charge the Yamato cannons!" Matt stomped his foot loudly on the floor to bring everyone out of their stupor. "Now's our chance. It doesn't matter why or how, but we can't waste this. Bring it online now!"

"Charging initiated," a crewmember said.

Sarah's eyes widened as she felt something. The link to Shirou was getting weaker, but why? She stared at the main screen with rapid realization.

"Wait, Shirou is on that ship!"

"Who?" Raynor asked. "This isn't the time for jokes, darlin'."

"I'm not! Shirou is the one who saved me on Tarsonis. He's there. I know he's there!" Sarah took a step forward unconsciously. She could feel the link between them getting weaker by the second even as she tried to forcefully pour energy into it.

"If he is, then I doubt he's alive," Matt said before facing the front. It was time. "Fire the Yamato cannon!"

"No!"

Sarah watched as the blast of concentrated energy left the ship and smashed into the Zerg vessel. When it exploded in a bright flash, she felt the link to Shirou disappear.

"Shi—!"

~o~

Shirou blinked as the light faded before his eyes to reveal…a dojo…? It was not just any dojo, but the very same one that used to be part of his home in Fuyuki city. The wooden walls were nostalgic, and in the front, there was a small bonsai tree before two banners. However, even with all the similarities, there was a difference. The canvas above those banners had an ink brush drawing of what could only be a caricature of Saber with an ahoge.

"What is this place?" He blinked again. The voice that came out from his throat wasn't the harsh, mature one that had been part of his life since he grew into adulthood, but a much younger one, one that he had almost forgotten. He looked down to see that he was wearing a white gi and a dark blue hakama while sitting in a seiza position. More importantly, his body was smaller, and his hands were pale instead of the dark tan he had gotten from his harsh lifestyle.

"You really did it this time, didn't you, Shirou?" A woman with short light-brown hair stepped off from the left side and into view, as if she had always been there. She was wearing the same clothes as he was, though she had a smiling demeanor as she waved enthusiastically.

"Who…are you…?" Shirou stared at the woman. She was familiar. It pricked at his mind, but no matter how he turned it over in his head, he couldn't remember who she was. That didn't erase the fact that he once knew who she was; there was too much familiarity to shrug that off so easily.

"Forgetting me already, Shirou?" The woman asked with a pout and a huff. "I'm Taiga Fujimura!"

Ah yes, Taiga was her name. It felt like part of his memories became fresher with that revelation.

"You did something really, really stupid," Taiga said. "Isn't that right, senior student?"

"That's right!" A white-haired girl wearing a white sports shirt and purple bloomers stepped out from the right. It was a face that he recognized. Illyasviel von Einzbern.

"Ilya…"

"Yay, you remembered me!" The young girl was hopping up and down as she clapped her hands excitedly.

"No fair!" Taiga brought out her shinai and waved it menacingly.

"Don't wave that demonic sword around!" Ilya backed away.

"What's going on?" Shirou's mind was in a whirl. What was all this? This couldn't be real. Was this a dream?

"Daryyyyyya!" Taiga brought the shinai down on his head.

"Ow!" Shirou nursed the bruise that was forming on his head. What in the world? That actually hurt!

"You idiot! I didn't think even you would get this bad end. Have another!" Taiga brought down the shinai again, but Shirou caught it between clapped hands.

"Master is right," Ilya said as she came up to the two who were still stuck in the sword catch maneuver and patted Shirou on the head. "Sacrificing yourself is a no-no."

"That's right!" Taiga took a step back as she pulled her shinai out of his grip. She propped the tip against the polished wood of the flooring. "Listen to pupil number one. You've got to start working with your allies because better solutions are just around the corner. You can't keep shouldering the burden on your own. It'll only lead to a dead end."

"If I wasn't sure I was already dead, I would think I was going insane." Shirou stood from his seiza and yelled: "Enough with this already!"

Before his eyes, the scenery began to melt. Taiga and Ilya faded away as the entire image seemed to drip down like wet paint. He blinked, and in that moment, everything changed.

Shirou was now standing in a hallway, one reminiscent of a castle. The walls were made of stone, but it was filled with an assortment of decorations that wouldn't be out of place in a royal castle. There was an expensive carpet spread out before him, paintings of scenes that could only be called legendary, and suits of empty armor that stood upright in their vigil. He turned his head to the window on his left.

Outside was a scene of a snow-covered landscape in a vast forest that stretched out all the way to a mist that seemed to obscure everything beyond. Walking around on the snow below were two very familiar faces.

Kiritsugu Emiya was laughing as a small, white-haired girl danced around him. It took a moment before he could piece the picture together. It was a younger and much smaller Ilya. What was this? Even as confusion filled him, he continued to stare at the scene.

He turned his head away and found an older version of Ilya standing right in front of him. He knew that he should have been startled at her sudden appearance, but he wasn't. It was odd, looking at this face that didn't exist. It couldn't exist, because Ilya had died long before she could grow up to attain that appearance. Despite that, she was there, standing in front of him in a dark violet blouse, a snow-colored skirt, and tight-high white boots.

"Really, Shirou, I thought you would've liked it better with Taiga and Ilya."

Shirou narrowed his eyes. "What are you?"

"Not 'who'? I thought you would be a little cuter." The person wearing the mature form of Ilya that should not exist smiled.

"Enough with the games," Shirou said. "You're Alaya, aren't you?"

"Right in one. If I say, 'As expected of my adopted son,' that would probably be a lie so I won't."

"Just as well. I wouldn't care for a parent like you."

"You know, you're really pushing me by doing something so stupid. Sacrificing your life? It would be easier to use another counter guardian, but you are the most suitable one." The previously happy face narrowed within a single moment, eliminating all trace of her joviality. "This is the only chance I'm giving you. It's my fault for throwing you in without telling you anything, but next time, _I will replace you_."

"So the girl is that important?"

"Indeed. She's so very important."

"For humanity's survival?"

"That's one factor," Alaya said. "But you do understand what I am, right? I'm the collective unconscious will of mankind, and the unified wish of humanity is not just for survival. Do you know what the second part of that wish is?"

"No," Shirou said with a frown.

"_The Destruction of All Threats Xeno._" Alaya grandly held out her arms to the side to emphasize the scale. "Humanity is a species trying to prevail against the likes of alien races. The wish for their destruction is intrinsically tied to humanity's survival, but at the same time, it's different. It's more like prevention in this case. You came from that wish, so that's why this time, it's different, don't you see?"

"What are you getting at?"

"That girl, Sarah Kerrigan, is the key to everything. It's my hope that she will become the road instead of the noose."

"Hope? That's not a word for something like you to say."

"I was a force of will when it was just Gaia, but mankind has expanded so much and grown so large that I became something a little more…" She fingered her lip with a smile. "…intelligent."

"A bit too much if you're asking me."

"I'm not, but I'll take that as a compliment," Alaya said cheerfully. "Let's get back on topic. Kerrigan can become the best or worst thing for humanity, but that depends on fate."

"It's strange for something like you to rely on chance."

"It's human nature to gamble, and I'm a product of human nature." Alaya twirled around, letting her skirt float up a little. After one revolution, she stops and points at Shirou. "Besides, I'm tipping the scales with you. I have the advantage as long as the other players aren't cheaters like me."

"The other players?"

"Why, I'm talking about the Protoss and the Zerg." Alaya smiled brightly. "Mankind can't ever be safe in this galaxy without destroying them first."

"Why is that necessary?"

"I told you before, didn't I? It's what humanity wants deep down. Besides, survival and destruction comes hand in hand. You should know that best," Alaya said. "Kill one boat of a dozen to save another boat with two dozen. It's just arithmetic, but it's the only way. Isn't that right?"

Shirou frowned.

One moment, she was standing in front of him. The next, she was standing behind him, her back pressed into his.

"We're alike, you and I." Her voice was soft and whispery, but he would have heard it even in a crowd of hundreds. "Numbers are all that matters."

"Don't speak such nonsense," Shirou said with an edge to his voice. "It's giving me a headache just listening to the trash you're spewing."

"You're right. You can never match up to me, but it's the thought that counts, isn't it?" Alaya reappeared in front of him, sporting a smile once more. It was almost like she hadn't moved at all. "Not everyone gets second chances. Don't disappoint me now because you won't get another."

A hairline fracture appeared, a crooked line stretching from her forehead down to her cheek. Crumbles of pale-colored chips fell from the cracks, as if her face was a Noh mask made of porcelain. Seemingly undisturbed, she reached up a hand and brushed the loose pieces away, as casually as one would brush away crumbs after eating a bread or cookie.

"This is taking a lot out of me so I hope you appreciate this."

Light filled his vision until it was completely white.

~o~

"—rou…?" Huh? Sarah blinked. Why was she yelling his name?

After all, Shirou was right next to her, even if he did look a bit out of it. After going through so many blood-stained hallways and rescuing the small group together, she didn't blame him. He had been stoic at the sight of the massacre in the medbay when it had definitely turned her stomach, but she guessed that he was just reliable enough to hold it in until afterwards.

The white-haired man blinked. One moment, he was in a castle speaking to Alaya, and the next, he was on the bridge of the Hyperion.

"Well, this is one way to do things," Shirou muttered to himself as he watched the main screen. On it, the large blast of energy impacted the Zerg vessel and exploded. It writhed and flailed its tentacles in panic as large chunks of its massive body separated from it, but those struggles were fleeting. It soon became still, a lifeless wreck floating in space.

There was silence on the bridge as it seemed everyone wanted to savor it for just a moment. Then, it was pandemonium.

"There's no response. Life signs within the Zerg vessel are rapidly disappearing."

"Informing the squads to clear out the remaining Zerg on the ship."

"There're calls coming in about the wounded."

"Structural damage significant. Will require repairs before a warp jump can be safely used."

The reports and the chatter continued to fill the bridge as Raynor slapped Matt on the back with a laugh. "It looks like we got out of it by the skin of our teeth."

Matt pitched forward slightly, nearly stumbling, before he threw an annoyed glance at his friend. "Remember that you're still in your CMC armor the next time you want to do that."

"I'll keep that in mind," Raynor said with a smile. "You know what that light show was all about?"

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it helped us out," Matt said. "There's no way to find out what it was now that the vessel has been destroyed. I can't think of a person who would want to walk into there even if it wasn't."

"I suppose so," Raynor said. "I guess the question is: what're we gonna do now?"

"We practically have _holes_ all over the Hyperion, which makes it unsafe for using the warp drive. Until we can get those repaired, we're stuck in this system on our regular engines." Matt pressed a button on the table, bringing out another interior map of the ship. "Once we get the rest of the Zerg cleaned out, we're going to need to take stock of the wounded, and it's not going to be pretty. Frankly, we don't have the supplies for this either."

"What do you suggest?"

"Char is the only planet with enough minerals and gas to get us up and running fast enough before Mengsk's fleet arrives. We can use some of the resources to fabricate some make-shift medical supplies and keep our people alive until the repairs are done. It's pretty risky all around, especially if the Confederates are still here, but it's our best bet at the moment."

"We don't have any other choices besides that hellhole?"

"It's the only one where we even have a chance to outrun Mengsk's fleet," Matt said. "And…well…our chances weren't that good in the first place."

"There's no choice then. Do what you gotta do."

Matt nodded and turned to the rest of the crew. "We're setting a course for Char!"

~o~

Even from across the vast reaches of space, the Overmind felt the disturbance. It was powerful enough that he didn't even need to use proxies to feel it out. Sending out his energy, he felt the manipulation of reality that had taken place. The application of the power was neat, not messy like one would expect. That meant that whoever did this was experienced and powerful.

Worse, this new entity was interfering in the same system where Zasz was handling the matter of the psionic. This would be far too much for the cerebrate to handle alone.

The Overmind reached out to one of its followers, a unique creature that was created for the sole purpose of research and development for the swarm.

"Abathur, my most studious of followers, hear my call and answer."

"Overmind. Organism Abathur is here," Abathur answered back through the new link.

"How goes your research on the psionic Terrans?"

"Incubation of DNA of above average psionic. Produced one thousand. Only twelve has initial potential. But subpar. Cobbled them together. Increased only to average potential. Energy cost too expensive. Results too insignificant. Will continue to research to isolate psionic factor."

"Turn that creation into a part of the Swarm."

"Waste of resources. Not efficient. Psionic potential too weak. Mind empty."

"It does not matter. Do it."

"As you command, Overmind."

~o~

Author's Note: Thanks goes to Carl Ogren, Starspawn10, Stiama, and Vandenbz for beta-ing!

To be fair, the unnamed weapons were first mentioned in chapter 1. I think that it's fine to use them for unimportant roles, but I will refrain from using them for important parts. I prefer to use weapons from canon material for those. With Shirou's—and Gilgamesh's—ability, it's all too easy to just make up a weapon that solves everything. That's not being creative; that's just bullshitting. It doesn't mean that I won't ever do it since it can make a fight interesting, but it definitely won't be an "I win" button. Though, I suppose I am lenient about it if I mentioned it several chapters before or it's been properly developed. Well, now you know my stance on it.

I do realize asteroids would technically be spaced out more in an asteroid field, not like in the movies, but it has game basis in Heart of the Swarm on the mission where the Hyperion attacks Mira Han so I feel it's permissible.

As for using a Leviathan, it was either that or an overlord. Or just doing something different like a swarm of flyers, but that would be an entirely different kind of fight then.


End file.
